A trademark is a unique sign or symbol used to label a product so that anyone who looks at the product can tell that it belongs to the maker of that product. This is something that we are all basically familiar with because these symbols are so important to businesses in the twenty-first century. However, did you know that these identifying markers have a long history that dates back to the Roman Empire or maybe even before?

It is believed that the most primitive example of the use of an identifying marker was in the branding of cattle. Although this is a practice that is still used today, it is something that is believed to have begun as early back as 5000 BC. Cave dwelling pictures from this time depict buffalo with marks on their sides that look like some type of primitive branding. People who study the history of trademarks suggest that this is the earliest example of a person using a symbol to denote that a product belongs to him or her.

These primitive people weren’t the only people from the BC era to use symbols to mark their property. In fact, it was as early as this that such symbols began to be used by people for economic reasons. Two major groups of people were important to the development of this part of trade mark history. The first were Greek potters who placed symbols in their ceramic pieces to distinguish their pieces from the pieces of other potters. The second, and perhaps more well known, were the people of the Roman Empire who stamped the bricks that they made with a mark. To some historians, this latter example is considered the earliest example of modern trademark usage.

When we think about the role of identifying symbols in the business world today, we typically think about how they can be used to protect us legally. We use these distinguishing markers to brand our products so that there is no dispute as to whether or not our company made them. This allows us various legal protections. Those legal protections first started being developed in correlation with identifying marks that were used as early as the 13th Century.

The first law to be developed that relates to this is the Bakers Marking Law which is an English law created in the 1200s which related to the marks that bakers were allowed to make on their bread. A series of trade mark laws (and related infringement laws) followed in fairly quick succession for the next several centuries. These included laws about proving ownership with a distinguishing mark if you claimed that your goods had been stolen, laws requiring certain tradesmen, like bottle makers, to put an identifying symbol on their work, regulations about who can use someone else’s mark (15th century legislation allowed a widow to use her dead husband’s mark) and laws related to the legal consequences of using marks that didn’t belong to you.

Although all of these laws were being passed, there was no widespread trade mark laws established until the nineteenth century. At that time, countries around the globe began passing such laws. By the end of that century, an international agreement on the issue had been reached. The majority of the symbols that we’re familiar with today are similar to those that began to be developed during this time. However, we’re seeing a new shift in this part of history as the twenty-first century begins. New technology has made it possible to create identifying symbols that aren’t just flat two dimensional images but may be 3D graphics, sound-based or scent-based. The history of the trademark may be a long one but it’s not done developing yet.