The patent office handles hundreds of thousands of patents each year. The most common patents are the utility patent, design patent and the plant patent. Additionally, the patent office offers a provisional patent for inventors to protect their potential future patents. 
ECU has trademarks on a variety of ECU logos and phrases
for use on apparel and other merchandise!
A Trademark is a name, symbol, or device, or any combination thereof, other than a trade name in its entirety, adopted and used by a person to identify their goods and distinguish them from similar goods made or sold by others.
There are two types of trademarks.
Registered and Unregistered.
Registered trademarks have a circle R next to them and have gone through the process to become fully registered and legally protected trademarks.
Unregistreed trademarks have some 'common law' protections but have not gone through the registration process.
A service mark is a word, name, symbol (or a combination of those) used and adopted and used in the sale or advertising of services to identify their specific services.