Trademark: A trademark can be a word, name, symbol, device or any combination thereof which is used to identify and distinguish the goods or services of one company from goods or services of another. In order to qualify as a trademark, the mark must be used in federally regulated commerce, and the mark must be distinctive. In a nutshell, the distinctiveness requirement means that a mark cannot describe the underlying product, or if it does describe the product, the mark must have been used extensively enough in commerce to acquire a certain level of market recognition (i.e. secondary meaning). Moreover, some marks will not be protected as trademarks, even if they are well recognized by consumers as trademarks (forbidden marks).