CatchThis Naming Company Blog
Category Archives: Trademark
You know how people often go to the store to buy good old-fashioned dairy milk, and then buy this stuff called “soy milk” figuring it’s the same thing? Milk is milk, right? Yeah, I’d never heard of that happening either. … More »
This item was originally published on April 1, 2010 at Fast Company. I was in a meeting with Vinod Khosla once, about a thousand years ago in Internet time (which would make it roughly 2001). We were discussing how, even … More »
The fine folks at the Duets Blog asked me to contribute a guest piece. I’ve revisited the subject of Twitter and trademarks. Hop on over and read!
My friend Joe Murray at Doremus just sent me a link to this great article at Salon about the use of “Godzilla” as a trademark, and how Toho Co Ltd., the owners of the mark, will sue the tails off … More »
I employ a deliberately mixed metaphor in the title of this post to exemplify my confusion about what Twitter’s trying to do here. Quick trademark primer: trademarking a name of a product or service generally prevents other people from using … More »
It used to be that marketers and lawyers didn’t see eye to eye. (Ok, maybe the use of past tense is a bit optimistic.) But we’ve found a few quality IP attorneys who really understand what we naming consultants are … More »
I almost couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the news that a guy in Russia is claiming to own the winky-face emoticon. :0 He also says he’ll sue any corporate entity trying to make money off of his intellectual … More »
Recently, I promised to answer the question most asked by our clients: What does it mean for a trademark to be confusingly similar to another trademark? Well, I lied. The question that’s really most asked by our clients is, “It’s … More »
Occasionally we encounter start-up technology clients who tell us they want their name to be so popular it gets turned into a verb. Like, Google or Xerox. Oh ho ho, no you don’t! These big-name companies spend a lot of … More »
In honor of Saint Patrick’s Day, Catchword’s naming leprechauns have been busy compiling statistics on Green names and implications for marketers. It seems everyone’s jumping on the green brandwagon. Trademark filings incorporating “green” jumped 143% between 2006 and 2007, versus … More »