Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Care About Trademarks

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Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Care About
Trademarks
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Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Care About
Trademarks

• EVERYONE deals with trademarks (brands) on a
  daily basis.
• As consumers, our purchasing decisions are
  constantly influenced by trademarks.
• As business people, we should have a better
  understanding of why trademarks are so important
  to effective commerce.

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1. Trademarks make it easy for consumers to find
you.

• Trademarks help you distinguish your products and
  services from those of competitors and help
  identify you as the source.
• Trademarks indicate a consistent level of quality
  of your products and services.

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1. Trademarks make it easy for consumers to find
you.

• Awareness of your brand and the goodwill embodied
  in your trademark can often take decades to
  establish.
• Aggregate cost of advertising, promotion,
  marketing, and sales efforts can easily reach
  into tens of millions or even billions of
  dollars, depending on the product / service.

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1. Trademarks make it easy for consumers to find
you.

• Differentiating your product / service from
  competitors is increasingly difficult to achieve,
  especially over a protracted period.

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1. Trademarks make it easy for consumers to find
you.

• Trademarks are the most efficient commercial
  communication tool ever devised to
• cut through the clutter
• capture the consumers attention and
• make your products / services stand out.

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2. Trademarks help prevent marketplace confusion.

• Trademarks protect the consuming public by
  preventing confusion as to the source of goods or
  services.

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2. Trademarks help prevent marketplace confusion.

• If the product made under a brand turns out to be
  defective, consumers have accurate information
  about the source of a product and can return it
  to the manufacturer or supplier for a refund.

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2. Trademarks help prevent marketplace confusion.

• Trademarks give consumers the ability to protect
  themselves by relying upon known brands of
  products or services.

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2. Trademarks help prevent marketplace confusion.

• Trademarks provide consumer convenience by
  allowing consumers to identify (by word, logo,
  slogan, package design, or other indicators of
  origin) which product or service they would like
  to purchase or to avoid purchasing.

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2. Trademarks help prevent marketplace confusion.

• Trademarks provide consumer convenience by
  allowing consumers to base their purchasing
  decisions on what they have heard, read, or
  experienced themselves.

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2. Trademarks help prevent marketplace confusion.

• Trademarks motivate a consistent level of
  quality, helping the consumer to decide whether
  to purchase a desirable product or service again
  or to avoid an undesirable one.

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3. Trademarks are among the most economically
efficient communication tools.

• Trademarks dramatically reduce the costs of
  decision-making by allowing consumers to rapidly
  select the desired product or service from among
  competitive offerings.

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3. Trademarks are among the most economically
efficient communication tools.

• Trademarks can wrap up in a single brand or logo
  intellectual and emotional attributes and
  messages about your
• company
• reputation
• products and services and
• consumers lifestyles, aspirations, and desires.

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3. Trademarks are among the most economically
efficient communication tools.

• Trademarks can work effectively across borders,
  cultures, and languages.
• Famous marks can be recognized as brands even
  when the native population speaks a different
  language and reads a different alphabet.

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4. Trademarks are your most enduring assets.

• Trademarks are one of the few assets that can
  provide you with a long-term competitive
  advantage.

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4. Trademarks are your most enduring assets.

• Trademarks are usually the only business asset
  you have that can appreciate in value over time.

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4. Trademarks are your most enduring assets.

• Trademarks are leverageable they provide value
  beyond your core business, and can pave the way
  for expansion (or acquisition, if desired) of
  your business.

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4. Trademarks are your most enduring assets.

• Brand Expansions
• KELLOGGS from ready-to-eat cereals to snack
  bars and breakfast bars
• ARMANI from runway apparel to perfumes and
  eyewear

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4. Trademarks are your most enduring assets.

• Brand Extensions
• VIRGIN from airline services to entertainment
  media and carbonated drinks

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5. Trademarks support stronger sales volume,
stronger margins, and can provide price
maintenance legally.

• It is often difficult to see significant
  differences among competing products.
• Your brand can be the critical factor in driving
  the consumers purchase decision!

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5. Trademarks support stronger sales volume,
stronger margins, and can provide price
maintenance legally.

• The price variance among competitive offerings
  can also be substantial, often by 100 or more in
  the same setting, such as a newspaper. Once
  again, your brand can make the difference.

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Trademarks can makehiring easier.

• People prefer working for well-known and
  well-regarded brands and their companies.

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Trademarks can makehiring easier.

• Popular brands generally reflect successful
  businesses, which tend to have better employment
  opportunities, remuneration and benefits, and
  potential for career advancement.

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Trademarks can makehiring easier.

• Popular brands are often inspirational and
  aspirational, qualities that feed into a persons
  natural ambition.

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Trademarks can makehiring easier.

• Because popular brands inspire positive feelings
  in peoples minds, they make employment
  opportunities more attractive to candidates.

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Trademarks can makehiring easier.

• For the same reasons, employee retention can be
  higher for popular brands.

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7. Trademarks can be a bargain.

• A bargain to obtain and maintain
• Government filing fees can be as low as 275 in
  the United States to obtain trademark
  registration.
• Only a few hundred dollars more in government
  fees are necessary to maintain registration over
  a ten-year term.

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7. Trademarks can be a bargain.

• Potentially infinite lifespan with renewals (as
  long as the mark is used in commerce)
• COLT (first registered in 1889)
• QUAKER (1895)
• PEPSI-COLA (1896)
• MERCEDES (1900)

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7. Trademarks can be a bargain.

• Trademarks share attributes with other forms of
  property, like real estate, as they can be
• Bought and Sold (Assignments)
• in the acquisition of a business
• in the acquisition of a specific product line

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7. Trademarks can be a bargain.

• Trademarks share attributes with other forms of
  property, like real estate, as they can be
• Pledged (as security, like a mortgage)
• to secure loans to a business

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7. Trademarks can be a bargain.

• Trademarks share attributes with other forms of
  property, like real estate, as they can be
• Licensed (like renting or leasing)
• character merchandising (entertainment, movies,
  television)
• sports endorsements and sponsorships
• co-branding promotions, sweepstakes, contests

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8. Trademarks are a very flexible and creative
form of intellectual property protection.

• Visual
• Words
• Slogans
• Alpha-numeric
• Non-English words and characters
• Non-Roman alphabet words and characters
• Position / Location

• Logos and other designs
• Shapes
• Colors
• Three-dimensional objects
• Position / Location
• Motion

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8. Trademarks are a very flexible and creative
form of intellectual property protection.

• Auditory
• Music
• U.S. Registration No. 2315261 (Intel)
• U.S. Registration No. 3034331 (McDonalds)
• U.S. Registration No. 2799689 (AOL)
• Sounds
• U.S. Registration No. 3020512 (wild cat
  growling)
• U.S. Registration No. 2827972 (cricket
  chirping)
• Voices
• U.S. Registration No. 2790126 (Youve Got Cash)

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8. Trademarks are a very flexible and creative
form of intellectual property protection.

• Olfactory
• Smells and Scents
• U.S. Registration No. 2560618 (bubble-gum scent)
• U.S. Registration No. 2596156 (strawberry scent)
• U.S. Registration No. 2463044 (cherry scent)
• U.S. Registration No. 2568512 (grape scent)
• Tastes
• Tactile

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9. Trademarks open the way for businesses to most
effectively utilize the Internet.

• Trademarks are often the top-of-mind address
  for an Internet user seeking information about a
  company and its products / services.

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9. Trademarks open the way for businesses to most
effectively utilize the Internet.

• The same commercial magnetism of a brand that
  drives repeat purchases in the bricks-and-mortar
  world also drives visitors to a website.
• Higher traffic on a website translates into
  higher rankings on search engine results,
  bringing even more traffic.

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9. Trademarks open the way for businesses to most
effectively utilize the Internet.

• As a result of the importance of the Internet to
  marketing, it is very important to obtain
  desirable domain names at the same time that a
  trademark is adopted.
• Only one domain name consisting of the trademark
  is permitted in a given Top Level Domain (like
  .com).

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9. Trademarks open the way for businesses to most
effectively utilize the Internet.

• The Internet also has the potential for widescale
  unauthorized use of your brand, requiring
  vigilance to police both proper use of your brand
  and infringements of it
• META tags
• Embedded or hidden text
• Counterfeits and design knockoffs
• Gray market goods

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10. Trademarks are one of the most effective
weapons against unfair competition.

• In the United States, deceptive and misleading
  advertising is prohibited by
• consumer protection laws
• unfair competition laws and
• the U.S. trademark statute itself.

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10. Trademarks are one of the most effective
weapons against unfair competition.

• Of all the forms of intellectual property, the
  courts and administrative agencies are often most
  familiar with trademarks.
• Courts are more inclined to grant remedies when
  unfair competition is present.

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10. Trademarks are one of the most effective
weapons against unfair competition.

• BUT, trademark laws are not meant to prevent the
  fair use of a competitors trademarks in
  comparative advertising, as long as the
  information in the advertisement is not itself
  deceptive or misleading.

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Conclusion

• Trademarks make it easy for consumers to find
  you.
• Trademarks help prevent confusion, deception, and
  mistake in the marketplace.
• Trademarks are among the most economically
  efficient communication tools ever developed, for
  businesses and consumers alike.
• Trademarks are your most enduring assets.
• Trademarks support stronger sales volume,
  stronger margins, and can provide price
  maintenance legally.

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Conclusion

• Trademarks can make hiring easier. People prefer
  working for well-known and well-regarded brands
  and their companies.
• Trademarks can be a bargain to obtain and
  maintain, as government filing and maintenance
  fees tend to be much lower than the fees for
  patents.
• Trademarks are a very flexible and creative form
  of intellectual property protection.
• Trademarks open the way for businesses to most
  effectively utilize the Internet.
• Trademarks are one of the most effective weapons
  against unfair competition and are often easier
  and cheaper to enforce than any other form of
  intellectual property.