At our Northern California law firm, we represent people and businesses seeking trademark protections for their unique branding strategies, including words, phrases and logos used to identify their goods or services. While usually this brings to mind product names or unique logos, we have talked here before about less common types of trademarks granted for color, sound and scent associated with particular products or services.
Today we will talk about another unique kind of trademark that is also relatively uncommon: the motion mark. When a moving image functions as a mark by distinctly identifying the source of a service or product, it may be eligible for protection as a registered trademark.
An example of a well-known motion mark is that of moving floodlights pulsing back and forth the dark sky to identify a 20th Century Fox film.
Procedural challenges
Applying for a motion mark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office or USPTO can be complicated. The applicant and legal counsel must consider the clearest way to present the moving image for consideration by the examiner.
The Trademark Manual of Examining Procedure or TMEP, based on federal regulation, requires either a drawing of the image at a “single point in the movement” or a square drawing with up to five “freeze frames showing various points in the movement, whichever best depict the commercial impression of the mark.” The application must also include a detailed description in writing.
The TMEP provides further that a motion-mark applicant submit a specimen that illustrates the “entire repetitive motion in order to depict the commercial impression conveyed by the mark.” The TMEP lists as specimen examples:
- Video clip
- Screen-shot series
- Still-photo series
Motion marks for services v. products
According to the International Trademark Association or INTA, it may be easier to secure registration of a motion mark associated with a service, rather than with a good, because of the difficulty of affixing a moving mark to a static product. Much discussion in the media also centers around the potential future of marks for moving images given advances in technology and use of the internet as a commercial platform.