Trade mark and designation law is the area of law that deals with designations used in the course of trade. In this context, designations are understood to mean, in particular, trade marks, company designations and the titles of works. In addition, rights to a name, in particular company names, also play a role in designation law. What all these rights have in common is that they give their owner a legal position comparable to ownership of property, which makes it possible, under certain conditions, to exclude third parties from using the sign.
Geographical designations of origin play a special role here. Unlike the other designation rights, they are not assigned to a specific owner, but may nevertheless only be used if certain conditions associated with the geographical origin are observed. Finally, domains are not designation rights because they do not give their owner a right comparable to ownership of property. However, since other designations can be violated by domains, trade mark and designation law is also essential in the domain sector.
Trade mark and designation law is a sub-area of industrial property law, which also includes patent law, utility model law and design law. The term 'trade mark law' is sometimes used as a synonym for the term 'designation law', but in fact only covers one sub-area of designation law, namely that of trade marks.