Your Personal Trademark

 

For novelist Tom Wolfe, it's a dazzling white suit, regardless of the weather or season.

For comedian George Burns, it was a cigar.

For basketball bad-boy Dennis Rodman, it's crazy hair.

For software developer Jackie Grubb, it's the color purple.

"It": a personal trademark that anchors your identity in the minds of your market.

"One day after I started my business a client introduced me by name and 'She is our computer consultant and her color is purple,'" says Grubb. "Soon afterwards, at business meetings, people began to chide me if I wasn't wearing purple.

"Since people were already associating me with the color, I renamed my business Plum Suite Solutions and commissioned a logo with a plum shape and color. Items in my wardrobe that were other colors had a session with purple dye so that my personal appearance and all my paper materials tie together."

Becoming memorable cuts the number of times people need to meet you before you become ensconced in their mental filing cabinet, and it increases the vividness of their recall.

Your trademark needn't be visual. It can be a particular combination of words that functions as a slogan. Reporter Tim Russert has trained his NBC compatriots -- and undoubtedly his TV audience -- to complete the trademark sentence for his show, "Remember, if it's Sunday... it's 'Meet the Press.'"

Other auditory trademarks might involve a particular kind of word, a tone of voice or a manner of speaking. During the last World Cup soccer championship, I loved hearing the way the Spanish sportscasters announced a goal, even though my Spanish comprehension is pretty terrible.

A motivational speaker I once ran across called himself "Tom Terrific" and told audiences that if anyone asked how he was and he didn't say, "Terrific!" he'd hand over $100. For someone who spoke on having a positive attitude, this verbal trademark made perfect sense. (He claimed that he'd had to pay up only a few times in many years.)

A kinesthetic personal trademark would stamp your identity in memory through a behavior or a gesture. I'm told that business guru Tom Peters is known for never standing still while on a speaking platform. Conductor Leonard Bernstein worked his way into the American consciousness through the vigor of his conducting and having to keep tossing his mane of hair out of his eyes. I understand he also carried a sharpened baton with him that he used to spear food instead of using a fork when eating in restaurants.

Don't take this identity-building tool to such an extreme that it undermines your credibility or sets you off as bizarre. For instance, in the business world and in politics, people take handshaking seriously. Developing an idiosyncratic physical greeting or abstaining from handshakes, as real estate mogul turned Presidential candidate Donald Trump did for supposed hygienic reasons, can mark you as eccentric in a bad sense. Otherwise, creating a personal trademark is smart, cost-effective marketing!

Marcia Yudkin is the author of the classic guide to comprehensive PR, "6 Steps to Free Publicity," now for sale in an updated edition at Amazon.com and in bookstores everywhere. She also spills the secrets on advanced tactics for today's publicity seekers in "Powerful, Painless Online Publicity," available from www.yudkin.com/powerpr.htm .

It Involves The In-ter-net...Dan Reinhold

This article may only be reproduced in its entirety, including the resource box and subscription information electronically or in print. A courtesy copy of yopur publication would be nice, too!

It Involves The In-ter-net...
By Dan Reinhold

There's a song by a group called the Bare Naked Ladies ( yes, I'm serious!) entitled “Never Do Anything". One line states, “I could make a mint, fill my pockets with more than lint, I'll give you a hint - it involves the Internet".

Never do anything. Involves the Internet.

Sound familiar?

When you're first exposed to the Internet, it's mindblowing and full of promises. Heck - if you're not “making money online" within five minutes of signing on, you must be some kind of vegetable. It's a big candy store, and everything looks sooooo good. If one program sounds really great, then a few dozen will make it happen even faster...right??

You're gonna do great big things, until...you don't. And you quit, with all those “Told ya sos" ringing in your ears.

What you don't know about the Internet when you first see it is that the things of real value have nothing to do with the endless stream of dazzling get-rich schemes and scams and financially fruitful flims and flams.

It's relationships.

That mouse at your fingertips can't help you succeed, friend. Wrong animal, although at least it's a mammal, too.

It can take a while and it can take some work. Finding good, real people online IS possible. That's the reason why WAHumor.com exists.

Did you really think a raving Inter-idiot like me could pull this off...alone???

Yeah, probably.

After lots of time, sweat ,tears, frustration, rage, doubt...and I do mean LOTS.

What else can you do?

Find a good place or two to talk to some good people.

We're making one right here at WAHumor.com...in our very own forum.

Now and in the future, you'll meet some amazing people at the WAHumor forum, many of whom helped me get here.

And you'll meet people like you with questions and concerns like yours - getting answers.

Ain't got no gurus here - it's just folks like me and you-hoo.

C'mon, let's go meet everybody...starting July 19.

WAHumor.com, the premier work at home humor website, officially launches on Saturday, August 2, 2003. The site pre-launches on July 19 when the forum goes live - be there for a special announcement you don't want to miss!
Subscribe today at www.WAHumor.com

A Peep into the Trademark Name of Viagra

Viagra had become a hero much earlier than its launch. Thanks to the media and its makers. Viagra had been publicized as that one magic wand which could improve a mans sexual health caused because of his impotency or to say according to the medical term prevalent--erectile dysfunction. Every where people could be heard talking about the so called forthcoming magical effects of Viagra much earlier than its launch itself, scattered discussions on Viagra news, countless Viagra jokes and what not!

But have you ever thought that how did Viagra get its much publicized nameVIAGRA? Whose brain child this brand name was? There had been continuous speculation since then. Was it named as Viagra because of its proximity to the word Vigor meaning strength? Many even guessed that may be it was named as Viagra because of its close phonetic sonance to the famous waterfall Niagara epitomizing flow, power and grandeur.

The reality is the reason of naming this anti impotence drug Viagra is much more banal or uneventful.

The name Viagra was finalized because of its being inoffensive in nature. This word was not in use in English or for that matter in any other foreign language to convey a particular meaning and that is why it was such that it could not cause any embarrassment or confusion to any body for the purpose that it was made for.

Definitely, the credit for publicizing this much famous name Viagra goes to the official makers of this drug. It is a well known fact that just as mostly all the pharmaceutical companies work in consultation with their researchers and consultants similarly the makers of Viagra also work in close coordination with their consultants who work on the potential drug names and later trademark them. Later these names are stored in the trademark drug names databank. When a new drug needs a brand name then all the drug names are considered as a potential candidate for the branding of the new drug.

Every new drug name has to satisfy a long list of criteria. For e.g. it has to be simple so that people find it easy to pronounce, it should be simple enough to be memorized by the people and most importantly it should not bear any particular or unusual meaning in any language. After this the name goes to a series of linguistic screens to check that it does not carry any special meaning in any of the foreign languages and legal as well as trademark screens to check that nobody else is using that particular name. Similarly the researchers of the official makers of Viagra also tested the potential name Viagra in different patterns to check that it does not have any unusual meaning and is not used by anybody else in the world.

So this is how the sojourn of Viagra started in the year 1998 with its launch and ever since then Viagra has never looked back and is persistently proceeding on its journey of fame as one of the first oral pill for men to treat erectile dysfunction.

Trademark opposition practice

In our firm 's practice trademark registrations which reproduce well-known trademarks of foreign owners or similar to them meet routinely.

The grounds for getting such registrations by unfair players are quite clear, but it should be kept in mind that according to the Russian Trademark Law they might be opposed and canceled. We would like to illustrate the aforesaid with several examples. In 1997 the trademark WHITE &MACKAY was registered in the name of "FRINO " Ltd.,(Russia)with respect to services in Classes 35,36,part of services in Class 39,namely "transportation, packing and storing of goods excluding alcoholic drinks " and Class 42,namely "restaurants, hotels, realization of goods excluding alcoholic drinks ".

When it revealed, an opposition to said registration was filed for our client, the well-known producer of beverages, owner of the Russian trademark registration of WHITE & MACKAY, with respect to the goods in Class 33 "alcoholic beverages, whisky ".The opposition mentions that the registration in the name of "FRINO " Ltd .is obtained in violation of Article 7 (1)of the Russian Trademark Law, which prohibits a registration of designations confusingly similar to trademarks earlier registered in Russia by other individual or legal entity with respect to similar goods and services. Moreover, said registration of "Frino " Ltd. contradicts to Article 6 (2)of the Law that says "a registration should not be granted to a trademark which might mislead a consumer with respect to the person who renders services."Among arguments in the opposition we put the following. WHITE and MACKAY are common English surnames.

MACKAY might be associated with English or Scottish origin of the registration owner, which is not true in respect of "FRINO " Ltd. located in Ingushetiya, Russia.

From geographic sources it was showed that WHITE and MACKAY are also geographical names, i.e. WHITE is an island in South-East England, MACKAY is the name of the town in the State of Idaho (USA) and the name of the town in Australia. Also data about popularity of the mark WHITE &MACKAY were supplied, namely, that WHITE & MACKAY Scotch whiskey had been produced since 1844 and enjoyed by consumers all over the world. Additionally numerous registrations of said trademark throughout the world were presented to the Board of Appeals of the Russian PTO which accepted some of the arguments and stated that the opposed and the cited marks were similar in view of phonetic and semantic identity thereof, with high degree of visual similarity.

Some of the services in Classes 35,39,42 are related to the realization of goods, and in view of high degree of similarity of the compared marks, a consumer may misunderstand that all these services and goods belong to one and the same producer. Having considered all the grounds the Board of Appeals satisfied the opposition and canceled the registration of "Frino " Ltd. partially by deleting the services in Class 35related to advertising, services in Class 39 related to transportation, delivery and storage of goods, services in Class 42 related to restaurants, hotels and realization of goods.

Another example of successful enforcement of trademark owner rights is cancellation of Cyrillic trademark registration РАМКА (in English -RAMKA) in the name of"Tandem " (Saint-Petersburg, Russia) for "butter and food fats " and other goods.

Said registration was opposed by Unilever N.V., one of the largest producers of butter and food fats, the owner of several registrations for RAMA, who had been spending large budget to advertise their trademark for several years and are still spending money for advertising of the products under mark RAMA. The products marked by RAMA are well known to Russian consumers. The Russian company decided to get a benefit from such popularity, filed an application for a Cyrillic trademark of PAMKA and obtain edits registration. Non-Russian consumers do not see how much similar the Cyrillic words PAMA (in English RAMA) and PAMKA (in English RAMKA) are, and they need additional explanation. But first of all we should mention that Unilever N.V. who has been successfully marketing their products on the Russian market for many years, has not forgotten to register their mark in Cyrillic. Though many foreign companies neglect our advice and do not register Cyrillic versions of their trademarks. Anyway, Unilever N.V. got a registration for Cyrillic version of their trademark RAMA, namely, PAMA (in Cyrillic).

The word of RAMKA in Russian is a diminutive for RAMA and means a frame of smaller size. Thus the Cyrillic words in question of PAMKA and PAMA are similar against phonetic, semantic and visual criteria. While comparing the word of RAMA with Cyrillic PAMA, one could notice only phonetic similarity, but Cyrillic PAMA and Cyrillic PAMKA are similar also semantically and visually. The Board of Appeals accepted the arguments provided by GORODISSKY &PARTNERS and canceled the registration of the Russian company.

One more example is our opposition to the registration of SCANDY trademark.

The trademark of SCANDY was registered in the name of one Russian company with respect to such goods as "stainless kitchen sinks "in Class 6 and "sanitary technical equipment for bathrooms, sinks for kitchen "in Class 11.

Said registration was opposed by our client CANDY S.p.A., the Italian manufacturer of popular sanitary equipment and the owner of the well-known trademark CANDY in Russia.

Our opposition mentioned that the opposed trademark was confusingly similar to the trademark of CANDY earlier registered in the name of CANDY S.p.A. for similar goods, and therefore the opposed registration was granted in violation of Article 7(1)of the Russian Trademark Law. Trademark attorneys of GORODISSKY &PARTNERS provided comparative analysis against phonetic and visual criteria, and concluded that the marks were confusingly similar. The Board of Appeals accepted their arguments and canceled registration for SCANDY of the Russian company.

It should be mentioned that in this case the Russian company tried to appeal the Decision of the Board of Appeals at the Higher Patent Chamber of the Russian PTO but failed.

Russian trademark attorney
Law firm: "Gorodissky & Partners" Russian Patent/Trademark Attorneys

From 1982 till 1994 worked as an examiner in the Russian Patent Office.
From 1994 till 1998 worked in major IP firmes.
In 1998 joined "Gorodissky & Partners".
Deals with trademarks, namely, trademark proceedings and enforcement of trademark owners' rights.
In 1999 participated at MARQUES International Conference, Drezden (Germany).

Is Your Domain Name A Trademark Infringement?

I recently received an email from a concerned, fellow Internet business owner, asking for my opinion on an issue that could literally destroy his Internet business and the business of several other domains involved.

He had received legal notice from a prominent company, stating that he needed to relinquish his use and rights to his web site domain name because it contained three letters that infringed upon their trademark and their domain name. This same company also contacted several other Internet business owners and made similar demands.

Should a company that registers a specific trademark have the ability to destroy numerous businesses that legitimately registered domain names? Should a company that registers a trademark have the responsibility of ensuring that a domain name registration agency doesn't issue domain names that may be a trademark infringement? Or should an Internet business have the responsibility of making sure a potential name doesn't Infringe upon a registered trademark? Where does the responsibility lie?

Ultimately, the responsibility lies with the domain name registrant, as the trademark laws that apply in the hard copy world also apply on the Internet.

Any company that registers a trademark has the right to protect their trademark and has the right to notify you that your domain name is infringing upon their trademark. Why? If your domain name has the potential of confusing the public into thinking the trademark holder is somehow affiliated with your web site, they may bring infringement claims against you. The courts would have to make the decision based upon the trademark laws and if your domain name, in fact, has the potential of confusing the public.

Domain name registrants can protect themselves as well. If you have a registered domain name that doesn't infringe upon any trademarks, you too may be able to register a trademark. Registering a domain name as a trademark isn't easy, but it can be done. Although you can't register the http://www.or the .com, if the use of your name fits the laws criteria, it can be registered. You should consult with an attorney familiar with the Internet, trademarks and the laws prior to registering your domain name as a trademark. For a complete explanation, visit:

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/tac/notices/guide299.htm

As stated by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, http://www.uspto.gov/ "A mark composed of a domain name is registerable as a trademark or service mark only if it functions as a source identifier. The mark as depicted on the specimens must be presented in a manner that will be perceived by potential purchasers as indicating source and not as merely an informational indication of the domain name address used to access a web site." In other words, the use of a domain name must not be used simply as an address to direct customers to your web site, but must be used to identify the products or services of the business claiming the trademark, which provides products or services via the Internet.

If you're in the market for a domain name, you may want to consider searching the Trademark Electronic Search System, http://tess.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=login&p_lang=english&p_d=trmk prior to registering a domain name. By researching the trademark regulations and knowing your rights, whether you hold a trademark or a domain name, you may be able to avoid the possibility of litigation.

Shelley Lowery is the author of the highly acclaimed ebook series, Web Design Mastery -- an in-depth guide to professional web design that is rapidly becoming known as the "Bible" for professional web design. http://www.webdesignmastery.com

How A Logo is More Than a Company Trademark

how a logo is designed for companies and the unique way it constantly advertises
How A Logo is More Than a Company Trademark

Logos are seen all over the world and on many different things.if we were to count how many times we see them everyday, the number would be in the hundreds. simple advertisements forexamplelike Coca-Cola is being looked at over 200 times.

I recently tried to count the number of times i saw various logos,and unfortunately i lost count. this was from television,billboard,supermarkets, magazines and even the products themselves.

What is a logo?

It is a name or trademark designed for easy and definite recognition,especially one borne on a single printing plate or piece of type.When ever I design a logo, no matter what the size or contents are,it must be accomplished with patience. most people do not realize what goes into constructing a logo. not only are there graphics that has to be created, the idea behind the logo has to be created as well.

Lets say you need a logo for your business and you give all the information about your company or service. after I receive this I have to get as close as I can, without reading your mind, to developing a good looking logo that meets your approval.

A rough draft of your logo is the first to be done. this is the way older designers created their logos. then it is ready to be created using a computer. while the image is being built, the image file is also created.

The best high resolution file types is a GIF. the animation and flash capability is above the rest. these are great for banners used on websites. however, a JPG file type is the most popular and the most widely used. they present full texture and rich in color. with a JPG your logo can be any size and still have the quality look to it even when it is in print format.

Have you ever heard of this phrase?

A FIRST IMPRESSION IS A LASTING ONE

Well, a logo does just that. it sends an important message across to us all. most of the time when we see any logo or banner, we instantly think advertisement. this is exactly what a logo represents even if it is on a letterhead magazine, newspaper or a coca cola can

Steven Boaze (CEO) is The Owner of The Corporate Headquarters Boaze.com Which houses and controls two companies (Web Development Technology - www.webdevelopmenttechnology.com ) and (Boaze Publishing - www.boazepublishing.biz ). Steven is also the author of numerous articles on Marketing and Advertising published by Boaze Publishing.