A trademark is a registered word, symbol, or phrase that identifies a company's product and sets it apart from competitors. Copyright is the legal right to control who may reproduce, publish, or distribute a creative work. A logo is trademarked; a novel or song is copyrighted.
The core difference
A trademark protects a brand identifier, while copyright protects a creative work itself.
- trademark — a registered word, symbol, or phrase identifying a company's product: The logo is a registered trademark of the company.
- copyright — the legal right to control reproduction, publication, or distribution of a creative work: The author retains copyright on all her novels.
How to tell them apart
A simple way to separate them: a trademark protects how customers recognise a brand, a name, logo, or slogan used in trade, while copyright protects the work itself, the actual text, image, music, or design that was created. A company's name is trademarked; the words in its advertising copy are copyrighted.
Both words can also work as verbs, and both compound from their own parts: trademark joins trade and mark, copyright joins copy and right. The mix-up usually comes up around logos, since a logo can carry both protections at once, its design copyrighted as a creative work and its use as a brand identifier trademarked.
