What is the difference between a trademark, service mark or registered mark?

A trademark (TM) is a word, phrase, symbol or design, or a combination of words, phrases, symbols or designs, that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others.

A service mark (SM) is the same as a trademark, except that it identifies and distinguishes the source of a service rather than a product. Throughout this page, the terms "trademark" and "mark" refer to our registered mark, trademarks and service marks.

A registered mark ® trumps all other marks and can only be used once the mark is actually registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Trademark registration allows for the following presumptions...

• The ability to bring actions for trademark infringement in federal courts, as well as state courts;

• Eligibility for up to treble damages in a successful trademark infringement action;
  

• A presumption that the registered mark is valid;
  

• The ability to prevent the importation of goods bearing infringing marks, by recording the registration with United States Customs.

Without Registered marks, the general public wouldn't be able to differentiate products or... content of high quality from those of lesser quality. Otherwise, the consumer would not have a way of establishing any continuity or assurance that a product or service will be what is represented by a name.

Our mark espd® represents high-quality information in "the field of historical preservation, paleontology and technology via the Internet, in class 42 (U.S.CLS 100 and 101)" and is a unique source identifier for our high quality services. It is a distinctive mark of the services we offer via the Internet although we have several Domain names such as espdesigns.com, espd.com and.net to name a few

The ESPD® Mark was one of the first internet based marks and as such many believe if it's on the Internet it can be infringed since the Internet is global... not true. However once Nasdaq used ESPD as a stock symbol for Espeed inc. (which was just deiisted) and now trades as BGCD our mark is still being advertised as if Espeed (BGCD) owned it (it never has). This further undermines and dilutes our mark and is unacceptable.

Our Mark ESPD® denotes any stylized, plain, or ordered form of the letters ESPD. Additionally when ESPD® was initially researched. There were no acronyms or organizations registered with USPTO or anywhere else.

Any reference to our marks must be set apart from other words or nouns they modify. The common way to do this is to highlight the name of our services or product by underlining, italics, or bold type and designate the trademarks with the appropriate symbols - ®, TM or SM.

• You may not market any business, product or service under a name that is confusingly similar to our marks.

• You may not use any of our marks in the possessive or plural form.

• Trademarks serve to identify the source of a product or service. If our marks are combined with the marks or product names of others, consumers may be confused as to which company is the source of a product.

• The ability to bring actions for trademark infringement in federal courts, as well as state courts;

• Eligibility for up to treble damages in a successful trademark infringement action;

• A presumption that the registered mark is valid