–Dan Kelly, Attorney

Certain late-baby boomers and gen X’rs will know that 3 is “The Magic Number.”  Don’t believe me?  See here.

I raise this cultural referent principally because I once stumbled upon, quite by accident and for reasons that I cannot now recall, the following items in the U.S. Trademark database:

  • The English translation of “SAMSUNG” is “three stars.”
  • The English translation of “MITSUBISHI” is “three rhomboids.”
  • The English translation of “SANYO” is “three oceans.”

I was starting to wonder if I was on to something, like the blue oval phenomenon, thinking that there might be some Asian cultural affinity to the number three, but I was hard pressed to find other well-known (in the U.S.) brands from Asian companies that also had ties to the number three.  Alas, another great theory down the drain.  But I did find some telling design trademarks for these companies, some of them admittedly old:

And, of course, astute readers will know that Samsung’s current logo is…Continue Reading The Magic Number