In-House Counsel

Trademarks and Your Business

By Hanna

My guest blogger posting at SCORE.org this week is on the staying power of trademarks.  When used properly trademarks not only have staying power, they are valuable assets that appreciate over time. 

The more you use them the stronger they get.  Think of them as little brand names, logos, slogans and trade dress, all pumping iron and working in tandem to create a legal fortress around your core marketing strategies.

Unfortunately, businesses sometimes fail to realize that even certain common words they´ve been using over and over again may have acquired a secondary meaning in the minds of their customers that associate those words with their business.  When that happens a legal leverage opportunity could slip between their fingers. That´s what almost happened to the Yellow Pages, one of the cases discussed in my book, The Business Guide to Legal Literacy. 

The Yellow Pages had carved out a unique marketing space as a business directory for many many years.  Then along came someone else who started to publish their own yellow pages and called it just that — the Yellow Pages.  Advertisers, the heart of the Yellow Page business model, got confused.  Customers got confused.  And the Yellow Pages fought back by finally registering Yellow Pages as a federal trademark.  Only by the time they got around to it, with the competition already honing in on their marketing platform, they wound up registering The Real Yellow Pages instead.  That´s the way you see it on your phone directory today.

You too can legally protect the marketing platform you´ve invested precious time and money in developing.  Unlike patents that have complex filing procedures, trademarks are much easier.  Talk to your lawyer. 

Full post as published by Legal Literacy on November 28, 2008 (boomark / email).