I spend a lot of time talking about one of my favorite (really!) topics – trademark protection for brands. Like most things that get better with practice, the more often I explain the process to clients, the easier it is to boil it down to a few simple, top level steps.
And so here, the 4 “Easy Steps” to brand trademark protection that Agencies and their clients need to know…
In addition to publishing content on Legal + Creative, Sharon Toerek is a highly experienced speaker, providing insight on marketing law and intellectual property issues by speaking at popular national marketing industry conferences and regional industry events, including:
Content Marketing World
AdAge Magazine Small Agency Conference
BOLO Digital Marketing Conference
Agency…
B.S.A. Three little letters that can strike fear into the heart of an Agency owner or IT department head.
For the blissfully unfamiliar, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) is an organization that enforces software copyrights for many of the “heavy hitters” of the industry, including, most relevantly for marketing agencies, Adobe and Microsoft.
Software companies engage BSA to…
Brandholders (and the agencies that help them with branding work) are about to experience a new, “wild west”-style age of trademark clearance and protection issues with the release of new Top Level Domains (TLD’s) by ICANN, the U.S. registrar or internet domain names.
In light of its plans to release hundreds of new TLD’s in rapid succession, over 1,900 applications were submitted to…
This post was originally published as a Guest Post on the designRoom Creative Blog (http://www.designroom.com) as a legal perspective on the use of words (“copy”) in marketing and advertising. Thanks to the team at designRoomCreative for asking me to contribute my thoughts.
My friends at designRoom have creatively chosen the theme of words, copy, and content for this month’s…
As a lawyer who advises ad and marketing professionals, I’m regularly reminded by clients that legal fees are not a fun way to spend marketing dollars. This is understandable, and to me it’s also a somewhat welcome point of view. If that sounds like an unusual perspective coming from “legal,” hear me out: it is always less costly in the long run to have a proactive approach to t…
I had the privilege recently to speak to a group of communications professionals, along with my friends Lisa Zone and Alexa Marinos at Cleveland PR Firm Dix & Eaton, about the legal implications of using social media in marketing communications. You can read a bit about it here at Time.com http://business.time.com/2012/07/18/protect-your-company-from-social-media-mayhem-2/
It was a fun…
My marketing agency clients frequently express frustration about the business pitch process. Not the creative part of the process – they enjoy that, or they wouldn’t be in the business, I hope. And not the deadline pressure. What they worry about is giving away their work.
This is a much-discussed concern in the marketing world. Agencies and their clients are forever engaged in this…
I spend a lot of time working with clients to determine when and why it’s appropriate to seek trademark protection for brands. Since many of the questions about trademarks seem “universal” (ie. I get them a lot), I thought it would be helpful to talk about them here. So here, in no particular order, are 6 of the most frequently asked questions about trademarks:
How do I know when I need…