768
Opinion of the Court
sons engaged in . . . commerce against unfair competition." § 45, 15 U. S. C. § 1127. Section 43(a) "prohibits a broader range of practices than does § 32," which applies to registered marks, Inwood Laboratories, Inc. v. Ives Laboratories, Inc., 456 U. S. 844, 858 (1982), but it is common ground that § 43(a) protects qualifying unregistered trademarks and that the general principles qualifying a mark for registration under § 2 of the Lanham Act are for the most part applicable in determining whether an unregistered mark is entitled to protection under § 43(a). See A. J. Canfield Co. v. Honickman, 808 F. 2d 291, 299, n. 9 (CA3 1986); Thompson Medical Co. v. Pfizer Inc., 753 F. 2d 208, 215-216 (CA2 1985).
A trademark is defined in 15 U. S. C. § 1127 as including "any word, name, symbol, or device or any combination thereof" used by any person "to identify and distinguish his or her goods, including a unique product, from those manufactured or sold by others and to indicate the source of the goods, even if that source is unknown." In order to be registered, a mark must be capable of distinguishing the applicant's goods from those of others. § 1052. Marks are often classified in categories of generally increasing distinctiveness; following the classic formulation set out by Judge Friendly, they may be (1) generic; (2) descriptive; (3) suggestive; (4) arbitrary; or (5) fanciful. See Abercrombie & Fitch Co. v. Hunting World, Inc., 537 F. 2d 4, 9 (CA2 1976). The Court of Appeals followed this classification and petitioner accepts it. Brief for Petitioner 11-15. The latter three categories of marks, because their intrinsic nature serves to identify a particular source of a product, are deemed inherently distinctive and are entitled to protection. In contrast, generic marks—those that "refe[r] to the genus of which the particular product is a species," Park 'N Fly, Inc. v. Dollar Park & Fly, Inc., 469 U. S. 189, 194 (1985), citing Abercrombie & Fitch, supra, at 9—are not registrable as trademarks. Park 'N Fly, supra, at 194.
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