Trademark

A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol, or other indicator owned by a person or organization and used to identify their products or services. Trademarks are used to distinguish products or services from those of other people and organizations and help prevent unauthorized use of others' intellectual property (ownership of ideas). A product or service does not need to be trademarked to be put on the market, but that is at the risk of another running off with the identity and accusations of theft.

A trademark is either marked with ™ (unregistered trademark) or ® (registered trademark). The concept of trademarks is regularly confused with that of copyrights, which is the intellectual property dealing with the right to publish, maintain, adapt and sell original work.

Information on trademarks in the USA can be found on the site of The United States Patent and Trademark Office and Trademarkia. Dedicated Monster High fans have turned to these sites to keep track of what the future may have in store for Monster High, and often the resulting findings are the first thing discovered about a new character, doll or accessory line, product or feature. Aside from the trademark itself, information about the new 'thing' is revealed in the product/service category it is filed in.
 * The term "toy figure" tends to indicate a pet.
 * The term "doll playset" tends to indicate a playset for the dolls, which is anything from furniture to landscapes and vehicles for the dolls to interact with and in.
 * The term "costumes" tends to indicate a costume.
 * The terms "dolls, doll clothing and doll accessories" turns up the most and roughly can mean three things. For one, it can indicate an accessory or doll line. Two, it can indicate a character and doll. And three, it can indicate a character and mention in one of the doll logs, usually the diaries.

Most of the early Monster Highs trademarks were filed by Michael Moore. Those which weren't are the July 11, 2008 trademarks, the December 12, 2008 trademarks, the September 8, 2008 trademarks, and the November 18, 2009 trademarks, which were filed by Irene K. Chong. Matt Solmon took over trademark filing duties with the September 2010 trademarks.