Brand Issues

If You are in Charge of a Brand, or are Planning to Launch a New One, Ask Yourself These Questions

• If you are considering adoption of a new trademark, are you considering marks that are inherently distinctive, as a means of reducing your advertising and promotional costs?
  
  
• Before using a new mark, or investing in development of packaging and promotion of a proposed mark, have you taken steps to determine whether the mark is available in all of the countries where you intend to use it?
  
  
• Are your trademarks being used in the most effective manner to promote brand and company identity?
  
  
• Have you registered your marks in the countries where you are doing business, and intend to do business?
  
  
• Are your new or existing marks registered in the proper classes, i.e., do your trademark registrations cover all of the products or services that you sell?
  
  
• Are you spending money to maintain any trademark registrations in countries that are no longer of interest to your business?
  
  
• Does your company have foreign offices or affiliates such that you might benefit from international trademark treaties that are not available to U.S. companies? Note that the United States will soon participate in the Madrid Protocol.
  
  
• Is your company policing its marks to prevent infringement, and to prevent its marks from becoming common descriptive or generic terms?
  
  
• Does your company have a plan or policy for responding to improper uses of your mark by customers, vendors, competitors, or magazine editors?
  
  
• Are company employees particularly those in advertising, marketing and public relations aware of the proper use of trademarks, and of the potential harms of improper use?
  
  
• Have you considered licensing any of your marks as a means of generating additional revenues, or of defending your marks against others who might want to use them in unrelated classes of goods or services?