A mark distinguishing one trader's product or service from another's. Also spelled "trademark" (U.S.) and "trade mark" (other countries).
Aptly for legislation on the need to be distinctive, Canada today uses the distinctive hyphenated spelling “trade-mark.” The usage was not uncommon in the nineteenth and early twentieth century although “trade mark” was used for most of the twentieth century, as in the rest of the Commonwealth. A return to the hyphenated spelling came without warning in the 1985 consolidation of the federal statutes, with no corresponding change in the French version (“marque-commerce,” anyone?). The Copyright Act did not then become the Copy-right Act even though "copy-right" was a spelling also used in the nineteenth century.
A mark used to distinguish goods or services as defined in the Trade-marks Act (R.S.C. 1985, c. T-13). Trade-marks may be incorporated into trade-names, but need not be.