—Randall Hull, The Br@nd Ranch® Last November a polar-white holiday Coke design forced Coca-Cola to kick the can off store shelves after a swift and vocal backlash from Coke imbibers. The endothermic reaction was like they had changed their formula or something. Oh yea, they did that already. The arctic can design lasted only a… Continue Reading
Monthly Archives: December 2011
Up On The Rooftop, Reindeer Pause, Out Jumps Good Old Counterfeit Clause.
Posted in CounterfeitsPeople obviously purchase substantial volumes of products over the holiday season. As much as this is a boon for legitimate retailers and manufacturers, it is also a boon for those unsavory Scrooges that choose to operate on the wrong side of trademark tenets. Let’s call them Counterfeit Clauses. As a New York Times article recently reported, counterfeit merchandise is… Continue Reading
Can you hear it?
Posted in Look-For AdsChristmas came and went, and here in Minnesota it was a bit brown and depressing looking outside. If only it would snow… Sigh. However, if you listen carefully you might hear it… no, it’s not the reindeer, but maybe some “listen for” advertising? This holiday season I’ve seen a few too many Lexus commercials… Continue Reading
The Power of the Rose Parade Brand
Posted in Guest Bloggers——Debbie Laskey, MBA As another new year is about to dawn on January 1, many will gather along Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, California – for 2012, on Monday, January 2. Pasadena is a quiet suburb of Los Angeles for the rest of the year, but every year since 1895, the eyes of the world have… Continue Reading
When it Comes to Guest Blogging: Fine or Just Fine?
Posted in Branding, False Advertising, Food, Guest Bloggers, Marketing, TrademarksIn many contexts of our life experience, "fine" sadly seems to have drifted toward embodying mediocrity. Consider this all too common dialogue: "How are you?" "Oh, I’m fine." Or, perhaps, "Just fine." Translation: "O.K.," "average," "acceptable," "passable," "satisfactory," "I can’t complain," "I’ve been better," or maybe "could be much better" . . . . After all, how interested or… Continue Reading
A Capote Christmas
Posted in GoodwillLast year, I posted a passage from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol to put us in a right mood for Christmas Day. This year, I give you some images from Truman Capote’s "A Christmas Memory": Of the ingredients that go into our fruitcakes, whiskey is the most expensive, as well as the hardest to obtain: State… Continue Reading
USA Today Lends Credibility to Airline Rules?
Posted in Branding, MarketingImagine my surprise this morning, after having blogged just yesterday about rote airline instructions concerning the danger of electronic devices in Lacking Credibility, to see the cover story for USA Today read: "Many Fliers Refuse to Turn Off Electronic Gadgets." Incidentally, not this Gadget, but that’s another story altogether. Recall that yesterday, in writing about the… Continue Reading
Just a simple holiday message…
Posted in MarketingFor many of you, today is the last day of work before a long weekend. So I’ll keep it short (my gift to you). This post has a simple message. Thanks. No, really. THANK YOU. Thank you for being loyal readers, commenters, and social media sharers. Thank you, guest bloggers, for generously sharing your insights… Continue Reading
Lacking Credibility
Posted in Almost Advice, Branding, Genericide, Loss of Rights, Marketing, TrademarksI’ll have to say, I really enjoyed Aaron Keller’s guest post from yesterday. In addition to the valuable insights he provided, it got me thinking about some perhaps unrelated, but parallel topics of likely interest to legal and marketing types. Aaron wrote about the importance of a brand being honest with itself and others. He expressed the need… Continue Reading
A New Year’s Resolution: Really?
Posted in Guest Bloggers—Aaron Keller, Principal at Capsule Many aspire to improve our individual place in the world. Aspiration is good. There is nothing wrong with aspiring to something more than you currently are. But, when it comes to a strong brand, being honest with yourself is more important than stretching to a place you may or may… Continue Reading
Webinar: Hot Marketing Topics with Trademark & Legal Implications
Posted in Branding, Genericide, Guest Bloggers, Look-For Ads, Loss of Rights, Marketing, Non-Traditional Trademarks, Product Configurations, Product Packaging, TrademarksLast week I had the distinct pleasure of participating in a ninety-minute webinar with my good friend, frequent and eloquent guest-blogger on DuetsBlog – Aaron Keller of Capsule – complete with some friendly banter on the following: "Hot Marketing Topics with Trademark and Legal Implications." Minnesota Continuing Legal Education has generously provided a link where the webinar can be viewed in its entirety, here. As you’ll… Continue Reading
INTA Seeks to Aid in Protection of Color Trademark
Posted in Law Suits, Non-Traditional Trademarks, TrademarksThe International Trademark Association (“INTA”), formerly known as the United States Trademark Association (USTA), has been around since 1878—longer than the color trademark and high-end designer shoes. It is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the support and advancement of trademarks and related intellectual property concepts as essential elements of trade and commerce. This important organization… Continue Reading
Tim Tebow Is A Garbage Pail Kid
Posted in BrandingFor the two or three of you that have made a habit of reading more than the headlines of my blog posts, you may recall that I have occasionally authored posts about "personal branding" as it relates to athletes and celebrities. Given my general interest in the topic, I couldn’t help but pile on to the information… Continue Reading
Bowling for Brand Exposure
Posted in Guest Bloggers—David Mitchel, Norton Mitchel Marketing The holiday season is here. ‘Tis the season to see elements of the marketing mix in action. One of the staples of the holiday season is college football bowl games. There are now 35 bowl games, a quantity many people (myself included) perceive as excessive. As a point of reference,… Continue Reading
O Brothers, Where Art Thou?
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Guest Bloggers, Marketing, Trademarks—John Reinan, Senior Director at Fast Horse, a Minneapolis marketing agency Growing up in Minnesota, I became familiar with cough drops at a young age. And that meant I became familiar with the Smith Brothers, Trade and Mark. You don’t know who they are? Well, take a look at the label reproduced here, on which… Continue Reading
What Does “W” Mean to You?
Posted in AlphaWatch, Branding, Food, Marketing, TrademarksThe letter "W" is an interesting one. Besides being the twenty-third letter in the alphabet, it is the only one having more than one syllable; it has three – unless it is pronounced with two: dub-yah. It is more than a bit ironic that — as a truncated single-letter brand — W, in most cases, has three times the syllables… Continue Reading
Mayo Clinic Logo loses lower case visual identity
Posted in Branding, Famous Marks, Marketing, TrademarksWe’ve already written a bit here about the trend toward lower-case branding and visual identity: Although I’d like to invite and actually welcome the far more professional wisdom of our trusted visual identity brethren and other learned branding and marketing types, until then, I’m guessing this trend has at least something to do with wanting to position a… Continue Reading
Top-Level Domain Names as Trademarks
Posted in Branding, Domain Names, Marketing, TrademarksThe Trademark Trial and Appeal Board recently issued a precedential decision upholding the Trademark Office’s refusal to register five applications for the mark .MUSIC in connection with a variety of goods and services, holding that .MUSIC is merely descriptive of the goods and services. A PDF copy of the decision is here. A company called theDot Communications… Continue Reading
Are You a Mind-Reader? Making Your Call-to-Action Known
Posted in MarketingCommunications can be tricky. Unless, of course, you’re conversing with yourself. More often than not, you are not your intended audience. It’s a bit more difficult to write copy or come up with a relevant campaign for your business’s consumers, especially when you can’t identify with the targeted audience. (And for some of us, we… Continue Reading
Occupy.
Posted in TrademarksYou know how when you say a word over and over again, or stare at it long enough, it stops making ordinary sense and starts becoming something else? To some extent, that’s how I’m beginning to feel about “occupy.” Regardless of what you may think about the movement – that it is democracy in action… Continue Reading
The Lifeblood of Mediocrity
Posted in Guest Bloggers—Brent Carlson-Lee, Founder & Owner of Eli’s Donut Burgers Branding, innovation and collaboration are critically important to business success; however, the meanings of these concepts are often misconstrued. While countless articles and blogs have debated the topics of branding and innovation, the chatter on collaboration has been relatively silent. Is it that everyone holds a… Continue Reading
New York Times Covers “Eat More Kale” Trademark Dispute
Posted in Dilution, Food, Infringement, TrademarksYesterday the New York Times ran a story on the "Eat Mor Chikin" v. "Eat More Kale" trademark dispute — the same one we covered a week ago: Eat More Anything? A couple of quotes from the NY Times article caught my eye: "In a statement, Chick-fil-A said, ‘We must legally protect and defend our ‘Eat mor… Continue Reading
When a Brand’s Visual Identity Has Serious Trademark Implications
Posted in Branding, Sight, TrademarksThe strategic use of color can make all the difference in the world — particularly the trademark world – when creating the visual identity for a brand, as color can be a very helpful legal tool in communicating the brand’s underlying meaning. And the meaning of a brand and its trademark, or a portion of its trademark, can have many legal… Continue Reading
Technology Predictions for 2012
Posted in Almost AdviceWhat does the future hold for technology in 2012? Not surprising, but many of the predictions involve the continued movement to the cloud. Randy Muller of Global Knowledge predicts the cloud movement will be "THE mantra this year and will certainly be more pervasive and louder in the years to come," and that "that SaaS… Continue Reading
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Duets Blog Authors
Steve Baird
Just so you know, I'm all about brands and the law, both professionally and personally. I regularly annoy family and friends in retail stores by focusing on product labels—not to buy the product, but to read the fine print and ask, "Who owns these brands" and "Did they really register those marks?" More...
Dan Kelly
You can call me a “non-traditional” attorney, which is a polite way of saying that I did not attend law school straight out of college. I spent five of my first six years after college as a junior high school teacher. The other year I worked as an engineer for a large corporation. More...
Sharon Armstrong
Voted most likely to become an actress while in pre-school, I don’t think I surprised anyone by becoming a lawyer, the steadiest professional gig open to those with a flair for the dramatic. More...
Brent Lorentz
Although I wish I could say my path to the law was the result of a lifelong dream or calling, it was more the result mere curiosity and an affinity for leather-bound books. More...
Catlan McCurdy
Having long been told by my parents that I could do or be anything I wanted, I chose at the age of 10 to become an attorney, as it was the career that would most likely lead me to my goal of becoming the first woman POTUS.More...
Tiffany Blofield
Although my initial career path was to be one of the Supremes (not the musically talented ones with platform shoes and sequins, but rather, the nine wearing sensible shoes and pressed black robes in DC), I will likely stay in Minnesota as I have never lived anywhere else. More...
Brad Walz
My law career started on the ice…as a defensive hockey player (we’re not talking professionally…and if I were, I probably wouldn’t have gotten into law). More...
Susan Perera
Born into the world with an aptitude for science and an affinity for art I found my career path quickly chosen for me. More...
Derek Allen
In hindsight, writing about creativity and the law may have always been in the cards for me. I began training for a career in litigation at an early age by finding ways to disagree with pretty much anyone about pretty much anything. In my longest-running “case,” I argued with my middle school math teacher, Mrs. Jabs, for the better part of four years over whether, even if I got the right answer, I had to show my work to get full credit. More...
Laura Gutierrez
An attorney I am not. Though told to become one, I don't possess those qualities needed to be an effective one (I lack confrontation skills, and although I can write a great argumentative essay, I can’t argue outside a sheet of paper). More...