Legally, trademarks and potential trademarks are often divided into either four or five categories. These categories from weakest to strongest are:
Generic
Generic names such as Hotels.com are not entitled to any trademark protection. Ownership of the .com name can only prevent people from using the same exact domain name. Others can use Hotels.NET, Hotel.com (singular) and so on. On a positive note,
since no one owns generic names, trademark lawsuits are unlikely.
Descriptive
A descriptive mark describes something about the product, such as the intended purpose, use, size, quality or effect of the goods. Descriptive trademarks are not entitled trademark
protection – until they acquire a secondary meaning though years of association with your product or store.
GreatDomains.com is a descriptive name since they sell great domains. Because of the time and cost involved establishing a secondary meaning, descriptive names are not recommended – especially for small companies. Established companies may have a secondary meaning while the new company does not, which is extremely unfavorable
legally.
Suggestive
Suggestive trademarks have a subtle relation to the product and can be trademarked. Jet Printing suggests quick printing or speedy printing but is subtler than the descriptive Speedy Printing or Quick Printing. About.com and Ask.com are suggestive trademarks.
Arbitrary Dictionary Words
A word that can be found in the dictionary, but that is not normally considered related to the product. An example is the Mustang automobile. But others may be able to use
Mustang for other products such as the Mustang airplane or the Mustang Ranch. Yahoo, Moster.com and Google are arbitrary trademarks which have strong trademark protection.
Fanciful Coined Words
New, created words such as Exxon and Kodak have the strongest legal protection.
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