Trademarks are definitely tricky because it can be any symbol, design, phrase, or even a specific sound distinguishes one organization/business, its products and/or services from another.
Amazon is a perfect example. They cannot trademark the word amazon because it is a common word. What they CAN trademark is the font and colors, logos and all things associated to their SERVICE which happens to be called Amazon.
Coca-Cola - as another example. They cannot trademark the word "cola" but if you tried to use their specific red and font combination, there is definitely an argument for trademark infringement.
Sorry to hear about your lifetime ban. Hopefully you can submit another appeal in a month or so?
Oh good! Thank you for this!! This makes me feel better. I was worried that if I used the word "Apple" to describe a big yellow apple T-shirt design, I would get in trouble . LOl.
They won't let me appeal again. I'm hoping they'll change the way they do it in the future. I know a lot of good people are getting kicked off. I'm going to keep my eye on the program though. I even reapplied. Just in case. haha.
Thank you for your comment! It really helps. As much as online research I've been doing I feel like I still am some what confused to a certain degree. So Trademark searches have been my best friend haha.