Legal protection for a name, logo, or slogan that identifies a business's goods or services and sets them apart from competitors.
A trademark protects brand identifiers — the name, logo, or tagline customers use to recognize you. It’s different from copyright: copyright covers a creative work itself, while a trademark protects how a mark functions to identify a business in the marketplace. “Nike” and the swoosh are trademarks; the specific artwork of an ad is copyright.
For sellers, this matters most when you design brand assets. A logo you create can be beautiful and still legally risky if it’s confusingly close to an existing registered mark. Some designers add a light clearance check to their process; most make the client responsible for filing and clearing the trademark, and say so in the contract.
For buyers, remember that hiring a designer to make a logo doesn’t trademark it — that’s a separate legal filing you (or your attorney) do. Using a name commercially can build some rights, but registration gives far stronger protection.
Trademarks can last indefinitely as long as you keep using and renewing them, unlike copyright’s fixed term. Before building a brand around a name, do a search and confirm availability with a trademark attorney — a rebrand after a cease-and-desist is expensive.