Your trademark is the most important asset your business will ever own. A good brand will set you apart from the competition and help you stand out from the crowd. A poor trademark will embroil you in legal disputes and hinder your marketing efforts. Selecting a good brand is as simple as following these guidelines.

First of all, avoid Trademarks that cannot be Registered. There is no point in investing in a brand that you cannot register. Trademark registration protects your trademark from competitors, guarantees your ownership rights in the trademark, and makes it easier to enforce your rights against imitators. As you’ll read below, certain types of words are inherently bad choices as trademarks because they can’t be registered.

Avoid purely descriptive words. The registration of words that describe the nature or quality of the products or services sold under the mark is not allowed. Therefore, the trademark “Cold Beer” for use with malt beverages cannot be registered because it describes the actual product being sold. If it registers, it would prevent someone from using the terms Cold and Beer to describe a malt beverage.

Avoid Last Names. Surnames cannot be registered as trademarks. Therefore, the mark “Wilson Power Boats” is a poor choice as a trademark because the word Wilson is a surname (and the rest of the mark is descriptive).

Avoid confusing trademarks. You cannot register a mark that is confusingly similar to a registered trademark. Therefore, the trademark “Sun-Screen” cannot be registered if the trademark “Sun-Screen” has already been registered for a similar type of product. A good idea is to do a search in the US Trademark Database and/or the Canadian Trademark Database.

Avoid generic words in a trademark. The goal is to select a brand that is as unique and distinctive as possible; therefore, avoid generic words. Examples of generic words include “green, premium, American, Canadian, luxury, gold, economy, premium” and many others. If you incorporate generic words into your business brand, you will blend in with the crowd, not stand out in front of it. Geographic words fall into this category.

Avoid TLAs (three-letter acronyms) and numbers. IBM, CNN, and ATT are distinctive trademarks because their respective owners invested tens of millions of dollars to make the brands famous. Even a poor brand can become famous if you put enough money into it. But acronyms are inherently hard to remember, while words, especially colorful words, are easily remembered. Therefore, “ELS System Solutions” is not as memorable as “Volcanic Silicon”. Similarly, avoid using numbers in a trademark, as they tend to be less memorable. Also, there are a limited number of unused acronyms available, so there’s an excellent chance that your TLA could be confused with something else.

Use made up words. Made-up words are words that do not exist in any language, apart from their trademark. Examples include SPANDEX, EXXON, KODAK, VIAGRA, and various other famous trademarks. Made-up words are a good choice because they tend to be quite distinctive. You can create a made-up word simply by combining parts of other words. For example, MICROSOFT is a combination of “Microcomputer” and “software.”

Try animal or plant names. Animal and plant names tend to be quite memorable and, if used correctly, can convey a good image while still being distinctive. APPLE COMPUTERS, TIGER DIRECT, and Ford MUSTANG are good examples.

Finally, make sure the first word of your brand is as distinctive as possible. It is often necessary to add descriptive words to the trademark to convey what is being sold or marketed in association with the trademark. If generic words are to be included, then it is vital that the first word of the brand is as distinctive as possible.