15.3.2 Trademarks and Competitive Advantage

For this activity:

You will need to write down your answers in your Mahara e-portfolio.

In this theme you have learnt that a trademark is any word, name, symbol, or device used to identify the source or origin of products or services and to distinguish those product or services from others.

Consider the following tasks. Prepare a paragraph, justifying your comments.

It may help if you use the internet and other sources of information to research your answers. 

Task 1: Provide a definition of trademarks by explaining what is protected and what cannot be trademarked.

Describe what trademarks are in as much detail as possible. You may want to give examples to illustrate your answer.

Task 2: How can trademarks help a firm establish competitive advantage in the marketplace?

To complete this task, you could think about/research the following:

1.     What is the definition of competitive advantage?

2.     How does a trademark benefit a business?

3.     What is a trademark infringement and what can a business do about it?