|
1. How to Pick a Logo Trademark. A
trademark can be a word, picture (logo) or phrase (slogan)
that you use to identity your commercial enterprise as the origin of
the goods or services you offer.
Contrary to a popular
belief, you do not need to register a trademark to own a trademark.
You merely need to use it. But, registrations can offer added
protections. As a basic rule, unregistered trademarks are
protected only where actually used. State registrations are
available, but they are not very powerful and they are generally not
preferred. The Federal registration is the preferred method to
"own" a trademark. Federal trademarks will lock your rights
nation-wide at the time of filing, even if you have not yet used
your trademark. See our
Eight Common Questions about Trademarks,
as well as the related linked articles. Importantly,
clearing a company name at the state corporation bureau will not
clear a name for trademark purposes.
So, in short, a
Federal trademark has three major advantages: a) timing: it locks
down rights immediately upon filing, even if the trademark is not
yet used; b) location: the rights are secured nation-wide; and c)
searching: it places the claim into the Federal database which can
be searched world-wide at
http://www.uspto.gov.
Having said that as
an introduction, the purpose of this short article is to acclimate
you to a fundamental purpose of a logo. We are often asked
about logos by our clients.
A logo is generally
a picture graphic, but it can also be any stylized font or rendition
of a word. Let's talk about the picture graphic.
Most basically, a
pictorial logo should be relevant.
By "relevant," we
mean that the logo should support the name of the company, product
or service. Here's a great example of the point: Geico
Insurance. We think "Geico" is somewhat naturally difficult to
remember. So, here's where the logo comes in: the Gecko.
The Geico Gecko (lizard). Let's play it out in a scenario:
Jane is in the grocery store and sees John. Jane starts taking
about her car accident and John starts talking about his car
accident. They start to compare notes on their respective
insurances. John tries to remember the name of his insurance
company but cannot, but then he visualizes the Gecko. It may
bring him to a "The name sounds like 'gecko'" or get him to remember
the "Geico" name itself because of the closeness of sound, but the
key is that the logo visualization supports the name that the
company needs people to to remember. Other examples include
"post-its" for sticky note papers and "strippers" for hook and loop
fastener strips. This is very smart marketing.
Sometimes clients
will have an abstract and complicated thought for a pictorial logo.
This is not necessarily wrong, because everything is contextual, but
remember the point. Pretty and clever are nice, but you need
to sell. To sell, you need people to easily recall your
identity. When a logo supports the name of the company, the
results are synergistic! And, as a general rule, keep it as
simple and as easy to remember as possible.
2. Domain Names.
A
domain name is not necessarily a trademark--in and of itself, but
can be part of a trademark use. Domain names are important
because of the branding and marketing tie-ins. It is often
smart business to secure relevant domain names as part of trademark
acquisition.
Our firm represents
many commercial enterprises, and there are many domain name service
providers who offer great service. Having said that, we will
recommend steps to help you acquire domain names now, whether or not
you plan on implementing a new website now.
- When you pick a
trademark, you should consider acquiring the related domain
name.
- You can
internet search "domain name registrars" for companies like
GoDaddy.com
to host your domain name; the current price for an annual domain
name acquisition and hosting is about $10 or less. We have
not personally experienced any added value by providers charging
materially more than that amount.
- Hosting a
domain name (being the official registrar for the domain
name) is different than hosting the website at the domain
name. Although, many registrars of domain names will offer
hosting services for the website. This is explained
briefly below (but, tech people beware, this is a layperson
summary).
If you want to have
a website, you need a unique address in "cyberspace." Simple
enough: if two people had the same physical mailbox street address,
where would your postal mail go? Getting this unique address
in cyberspace is supplied by the website hosting service (not
the domain name). The website hosting service will give you a
unique cyberspace address, called an "Internet Protocol" or "IP"
address. This IP address is a unique number of up to 12 digits
in four sections of up to three numbers in each section, like
http://67.199.69.7.
The number, 67.199.69.7
is our law firm's own unique address in cyberspace. (The
"http://" is a special code for your Internet browser, such as
Explorer; it is not part of the IP address.)
Now, if we see you
on the street, and we ask you to visit our website, we would need to
tell you to visit
67.199.69.7, which is difficult to remember. And, there is
no reason for that difficulty in the digital millennium, right?
So that's where domain names come into play. Domain names are
nothing more than nicknames for IP addresses, to make them easy to
remember.
Zegarelli.com is nothing more than a nickname for
67.199.69.7.
Moreover, we can have unlimited nicknames for
67.199.69.7, or,
that is, unlimited domain names all "pointing to"
67.199.69.7.
When you type in
Zegarelli.com, unbeknownst to you, the
behind-the-scenes cyber-powers actually just translate "zegarelli.com"
into the IP address. Each nickname domain name must be
registered by an official domain name registrar, which is what keeps
everything organized in cyberspace: if two people could have the
same nickname, it would be just as bad as two people with the same
IP address, or the same postal mailbox street address.
So, to recap, there
are two issues: a) the website (IP address) hosting; and b) the
domain name registrar hosting. It may get confusing because
many domain name registrars (the people that acquire your domain
names for you) may also offer to host your website IP address.
From a trademark
perspective, it is the domain name that needs to support the
trademark. For example, for "Zegarelli Law Group," "zegarelli.com"
is naturally intuitive. The ".com" extension may make the
domain name technically unique, but does not generally make it
distinct from a trademark perspective. For example, "zegarelli.com"
and "zegarelli.net," if both in the legal services business, might
still cause confusion, even if pointing to different IP addresses by
different law firms.
As a result, it is
generally smart business (particularly for only $10 per year), to
secure as many domain names as possible that might be confusingly
similar. This includes being pro-active to secure domain names
that have common typographical errors.
Again, the website
is actually at an IP address, hosted by an IP or website hosting
service. Any number of domain names can point to that same IP
address.
Even if you are not
going to launch a website now, the important point to remember is to
acquire all of the domain names now. This takes the domain
name off of the market and you can implement the website later.
3. The Entrepreneurial Spirit Award.tm
After working with entrepreneurs for more than 18 years, many awards
fail to recognize, and fail to reward, the true grit of an
entrepreneur. Many awards are quantitative and not
qualitative. That is where the Entrepreneurial Spirit Awardtm is
different.
The Entrepreneurial
Spirit Award is all about the story. It is about the human
condition necessary to overcome the difficulties that challenge us
to continue forward. It is about creating something from
nothing, and helping people along the way. We are looking for
the entrepreneur that best displays the Zegarelli Entrepreneurial
Cardinal Virtues: Vision, Knowledge, Courage and Tenacity.
Click here to nominate someone (or yourself) for the award.
|
