User blog comment:Semanticdrifter/Understanding Trademark/@comment-3417324-20130711115455

I used to live across the street from the old Patent & TM office in Crystal City. By the time I got there, though, I'd already done just about all I needed to do. Some of the important things to note about Copyright and Patent activities is that they are managed by different government agencies and have their own application and processing procedures. The "side-by-side" comparison is very important for Patent & TM -- it prevents people from picking deceptively similar names. When the application is reviewed, there will be an assessment as to whether the similarity is coincidence or deliberate fraud. This only applies within product classes, though, so it is theoretically possible to apply for a Microsoft trademark on skin care products. As to patents, the procedure and threshold is different for say, a device patent and a "method patent." If you have created a wonderful new way of doing something (perhaps a manufacturing process), you can patent that method or technique without such encumbrances as producing a "model" or "prototype." I'm by no means an expert, I'm just a guy who's used the service, so however much information an article produces, the keyword will still be "research."