US Internet Law/Trademark

A Trademark is a word, phrase, device, color or sound that specifically identifies certain goods or services to the exclusion of all others of the same or similar goods or services identified by the trademark. The Trademark Act of 1946 (the “Lanham Act”) (15 U.S.C. §§ 1051-1127) was enacted to ensure that consumers are able to rely on marks in exercising their preferences, by prohibiting competitors from using marks in a manner that confuses consumers about the source of a product or service. A trademark could be applied to a brand of software used on or sold over the Internet, such as Apache for the web server or Linux for the operating system. a particular service available over the Internet, such as the Yahoo web portal, the eBay resale service, or the Amazon book store.