Interactive Trademark Mapping
The mapping applications on your iphone and blackberry are tantalizing. 
You can play games, find friends at the local bar, pick a new restaurant, or get directions to your next job interview.
It’s a sign of the times that a team of trademark professionals and computer scientists in Madison, Wisconsin created a trademark mapping program.
So what does this mean?
Typical maps even those on your phone show a single data point, the location of a restaurant.
But MapWise for trademarks goes beyond that. It has a trademark specific database that gives the map its power. You can drill down to get a meaningful picture about where there are registered filings in Class 12 for that mark. Now that is actionable data! The distributor in Chile knows the company can stop an infringer because the company owns a registered mark in Chile. The General Counsel immediately has an up to date picture of the progress in securing marks all over the world for the new product roll out.
MapWise for trademarks is not just about mapping your trademarks. It’s about giving you insight into how your trademark filings protect your global brands.
Comments Off
Susskind’s Death of Lawyers-Trademark lawyers should embrace the change.
Richard Susskind’s book, The Death of Lawyers has been getting a lot of attention lately. An INTA thread on LinkedIn had at last count 40 comments on the book. The nationwide layoffs of partners and associates as well as reduction in associate salaries bear out Susskind’s prediction that systems using technology with less costly workers and the laymen’s use of on-line self help tools are replacing the jobs of traditional lawyers. The title of his book is an exaggeration- he recognizes the need for wise legal counselors who can guide their clients.
So what is the emerging role of a trademark lawyer who wants to survive and not die the legal death that Susskind predicts?
The only possible answer is to embrace the change.
Whether you work in a law firm or a corporate legal department:
- Identify technologies that either replace what you do, or help you do a better job. The legal industry is ripe for innovative solutions. Business intelligence has been applied in many corporate environments but somehow avoided the legal departments. That’s changing.
- Know what your client really cares about. It’s brand protection. In the era of on-line advertising, the brand is even more important. If you understand this business objective, you can provide legal counsel that justifies the legal expense of your services or salary.
- Offer wise counsel. Understand how ICANN works and is changing because securing the right domain names is critical to search engine optimization. Know how to use trademark registrations to shut shown cyber-squatters and counterfeiters to protect the bottom line. Advise on how copyright protection can be used as an alternative to protect designs in a new branding campaign. No piece of software can perform the kind of complex analysis that identifies changes in the law, aligns the law with corporate goals and identifies alternatives to guide smart decisions making.
MapWise for trademarks is technology that doesn’t replace you but makes you smarter. It gives you insight into trademark data that pouring over spreadsheets or docket reports just can’t. Its dynamic mapping function helps you generate a meaningful picture to share with your business clients to assess risk and cost effectively protect global brands.
Comments Off
Trademark ANALYTICS
“Analytics” is a popular buzz word that refers to making data comprehensible, most notably captured in the popular search engine optimization tool, Google Analytics. Google Analytics gives you different ways to measure everything you might want to know about traffic at your web site.
Data of all kinds is exploding around us. The challenge is to derive meaning from it, otherwise it’s useless.
One of the best examples of analytics is Billy Beane’s (general manager of the Oakland Athletics since 1997) predictive use of data to win ball games. The baseball specific form of analytics is ‘sabermetrics’ (Society for American Baseball Research-metrics). By measuring objective evidence, for example OPS (on-base plus slugging), Beale gains insight to help his team win games.
Trademark data is no different: lists of marks, dates, registrations numbers, country codes, classes etc… Typically, the major focus has been to avoid missing deadlines for renewals or responses due. But analyzing the data has been limited because of how its been been stored: in paper files in cabinets, hard to read docket reports, or excel spreadsheets.
MapWise software changes the game by bringing the power of analytics to trademark management. It goes beyond docketing to give the owner many ways to view and analyze a trademark inventory (no matter how small or large), to gain insight, avoid risk and achieve business goals. MapWise analytics offers insight in how to:
- Seek broader protection for your most important logo, and drop registrations for seldom used ones.
- Save money by not renewing the U.S. registrations for inessential filings out side of your primary business.
- Fill gaps in coverage in key countries (China and CTM) where competitors could grab them.
Here’s to both analytics and the arrival of spring baseball!
Comments Off
MapWise trademark technology- be smart and save money
At the University of Michigan Law School Sesquicentennial this fall, Prof. J. J. White introduced a panel of Intellectual Property professors, noting how technology has changed legal research. Lawyers used to spend hours searching through books to find the law, but they now have it at their fingertips in a fraction of the time.
While technology has fundamentally changed legal research, it has been slow to take hold in other areas. Paper files and home-made spreadsheets are still the common tools of the trade in corporate legal departments. Until recently, the legal department of a bio-tech company with $3.5 billion in sales had only one IT person.
The management of trademark portfolios is no exception. Companies, small and large, rely on paper files or spreadsheets which are inefficient, prone to containing risky data errors, without offering an analytical overview.
Change is in the wind. The current recession has driven home corporate counsel’s need to reduce outside counsel fees and use technology to make smart business decisions.
Martha D. Arthos, a lawyer and IT expert in corporate legal technology confirms this, “Technology in corporate law departments continues to evolve. The most important recent trend for corporate law departments is analytics because it enables the general counsel to parse through volumes of data and make smarter decisions. Software is no longer just a tool for greater efficiency and improved quality, it is vital to key business decision-making.”