How is a trademark like a hot dog?
Tim, an employment lawyer recently asked me, “What does MapWise for trademarks really do? Why does a company need it?”
I said, “ I am sure that the hot dog company you represent knows exactly how many hot dogs it has in the warehouse, how many kinds of sausages it sells and the due dates by which they have to be sold. “
Tim, “Yes, that’s true. The hot dog company has a good system in place to manage its inventory. It’s critical to its business success.”
I replied, “Trademarks are like hot dogs. Smart owners manage their inventory of trademarks in the same way they manage meat, or buns or other hard assets. They manage their inventory of hot dogs and trademarks for business success.
We see large and small companies either not managing their trademarks by sticking legal correspondence in a file and only acting when their lawyers call them, or keeping a list that only one person in the company has access to or understands. It’s not their fault, they haven’t had an easy to use tool.
MapWise is a simple intuitive tool. You don’t need to be a lawyer to use it. So the hot dog company can now strategically manage its trademark inventory just as effectively as it manages its hot dog inventory.
In this difficult economy, MapWise pays for itself for quickly by reducing reliance on outside counsel, offering insight into which marks to keep and which to let go, and avoiding lost sales revenue by seeing where a company needs to establish foreign trademark protection.”
“So now the hot dog company can be as smart about its trademarks as it is about its hot dogs. ”
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Trademark is for Trust
The chairman of the board of a manufacturing company recently asked me to describe as simply as possible the difference between a patent and a trademark. I said that a patent protects an idea, while a trademark is the sign of trust between a seller and buyer. When customers see the company logo, they trust the quality of what they are buying.
When that trust becomes threatened, some companies strive even harder to strengthen the relationship with their customers. Domino’s Pizza exhibits a good example with its new television and website campaign to publicly acknowledge its mistakes and correct them, http://www.pizzaturnaround.com/. By chance last week, a friend shared her e-mail to the local Domino’s Pizza store manager on Facebook, criticizing the stone-cold, mushroom-less pizza that arrived more than 1 hour late. Within a few days, her friends read the store manager’s apology and effort to make amends with a gift certificate. Trust will finally be renewed when my friend opens the box with a red, white and blue domino with steaming hot pizza, slathered with mushrooms.
The trademark is the tangible sign of that trust. A lot goes into creating the relationship of trust, for Domino’s- a complete change of the company’s pizza recipe, an expensive ad campaign, and the individual attention of store managers across the country. Once that trust is established, the trademark is a very valuable asset.
To the chairman of the board, I suggest, know which of your trademarks are essential to the relationship with your customers and protect them as some of your most important assets.
One reason why brands (and trademarks) are so important in our economy now.
Standing in the middle of the aisle of any large grocery store tells you immediately why the product name on the cereal box is necessary to distinguish that box from all the others and to capture the customer’s attention. Large consumer product companies recognize that their company and product names (their brands) and their legal underpinnings (trademarks) are essential to their business. A great deal of sophisticated marketing goes into getting the customer to see the distinctive yellow Cheerio® box that advertises healthy eating and which is strategically placed at the end of the aisle at eye level.
But the headline this week that Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving when shoppers traditionally hit the stores has turned into Black Monday, with shoppers preferring to shop for bargains and buy on-line, tells us what we already know. While some customers love to visit stores and browse catalogs, many customers are doing comparison shopping and buying on-line.
Because the Internet is our global marketplace, brands are increasingly important. Every merchant (who does not rely exclusively on street traffic) needs a distinct identity that customers can find on the Internet. The essence of that distinct commercial identify is its name, either as the name of the store or a product that search engines locate when the customer types in her search request. That name is the gateway to the website where the merchants sells its products.
Brands are essential to the start-up, trying to get a foothold in the marketplace. In talking with many entrepreneurs in Madison, Wisconsin, they all recognize that a critical first step is to have a memorable and distinctive name, preferably identical to its URL, in order to create customer recognition whether they sell on the Internet or not. The names of cereals in the grocery aisle (Cheerios, Special K, Raisin Bran, Golden Crisp), are relatively ordinary in my humble view compared to the names of successful current start-ups (YouTube, Twitter, Hulu) which are novel and fun. I think the reason is that new companies know that they need a name that is more clever, more distinctive and ultimately more memorable to gain crucial customer recognition needed to market their product to today’s customers. So when the customer is sitting alone at her computer and is not bombarded with all the colorful boxes in a grocery store aisle, she will remember to type that brand name into the search box.
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What's the difference between a brand and a trademark?
Short Answer: it’s the difference between the word/symbol that identifies a product and the legal right to protect it.
Brands have become an increasingly important part of the business landscape. Companies spend a great deal of money to create brand recognition with their customers. It seems to be a relatively new idea with a lot of buzz around it. Yet the core idea has been around for a long time, most powerfully conveyed by an old fashioned branding iron.
The symbol imprinted on the animal’s hide, in this instance the letters JHL, tells the marketplace that J. L. Hudson owns these cattle.
The meaning and function of a brand has not changed. It’s most basic meaning is a word or symbol (including a color or sound) that uniquely distinguishes the source of products or services in the marketplace from those of competitors.
A trademark is the legal right to protect that word or symbol. It gives the brand owner the exclusive right to use it and prevent others from using it on similar goods or services.
A trademark serves as the legal foundation of a brand. Just as a company obtains legal title to the plot of land on which its headquarters is built, it also obtains trademarks to protect its brands in regions of the world where it sells its products.
I find that the value of a trademark is best understood by the people making a significant capital investments in a brand. They don’t want to lose their capital investment as well as customer recognition and sales revenue by permitting someone else to use their valuable brands. Owning the right trademarks gives them that protection.
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