The Combined Use of Trademarks or Service Mark with Certifications Marks or Collective Marks

In this chapter, I analyze certification and collective marks and their combined use with trademarks and service marks. Trademarks, services marks, certification marks, and collective marks serve different functions and because of these different functions, these marks do not “overlap” in the same manner as do other intellectual property (IP) rights addressed in this volume. However, even though they generally cannot be used to protect the same aspects of a product, these marks are often used together to identify different aspects of a product. In this chapter, I focus on signs registered, respectively, as certification and collective marks and analyze the combined used of these signs with trademarks and service marks. Specifically, I address the following combined uses of these marks in the U.S. and E.U. trademark systems: 1) trademarks and certification marks; 2) trademarks and collective marks; and 3) trademarks, collective marks, and certification marks.