the difference between ®️ (Registered Trademark) and TM (Trademark)
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u/corvinalias made a good point of this.
I’m also not an expert but I have done a good deal of learning about this recently because this is very much in the news right now as I’ll explain. BUT as, “TM” is a state level trade mark, given by individual states, and “R” the Federal level out, given by the Federal government and will cover all states.
The reason why this is big-ish news right now is an up and coming Mexican franchise is literally trademarking the phrase “Taco Tuesdays” and trying to lock down all the right to it state by state but they’ve hit a roadblock with an eatery in New Jersey who has beat them to it. They can fight it out, or go to the courts.
One of the biggest hurdles for the NJ restaurant is you must protect your trademark aggressively, you can’t just pick and choose when to enforce it. Since clearly the restaurant isn’t protecting the phrase since every taco joint, middle school, and Mexican food truck in the country uses the phrase to some degree, they have a very poor likelihood of defending their trademark in court.
Of course, this only protects “Taco Tuesdays” and not “Tako Tuesdays” or “Taco 2s-Days” and “Tacos Too! days” etc.
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