a light touch

How much is that doggie in the window?

Very happy to contribute another guest post over at the IPCopy blog.

You can read "A light touch" here.

why do you need a trade mark strategist?

Have you got a strategy?

So you have a few trade marks. You used an attorney to help you obtain registration, although it seemed pretty straightforward. You didn’t run into any problems, but maybe that was because you used a good attorney who steered you clear of the pitfalls. But now it is just a matter of sitting back - the job is done, right?

If you think that maintaining a trade mark portfolio is just a matter of keeping an eye on the renewal dates, consider just a few points....

• Are you sure that you have the protection of registration for all of the marks your enterprise uses?
• So you’re considering having products made in China, but you won’t sell there. Do you still need to register your trade marks in China?
• Is it better to register a Community Trade Mark that covers the whole of the EU, or just the one European market of interest to you?
• How do you effectively monitor the marketplace to make sure no one uses a mark too similar to yours? 
• What do you do if you find a competitor using your mark?
• How do you keep renewal costs under control?
• You’ve increased your product or service range. Do your existing registrations still provide sufficient protection?
• Should you register domain names incorporating all your trade marks?
• Is it necessary to register the words, logos and different coloured versions of your marks separately?
• You want to launch into the US market in a couple of years. Should you register there now?
• A company acquisition has brought you a whole swag of trade mark properties in different countries. How do you make sure you know what you’ve bought and that the registrations are all valid and current?
• The colour you have used on your products for several years is becoming well recognised. Can you stop others from using the same colour?
• Your marketing people have come up with some variations on your house trade mark. is it a good idea to use these?
• Speaking of your marketing people, do they have a basic grounding in best practice for correct trade mark selection, use and protection?

So here we have a blog post full of questions but no answers. The real take-away is: managing a trade mark portfolio may not be rocket science, but it can  be far more complex that you first think. Find an expert.

strategy v. goals

Achieving your goals

Strategy: a plan of action designed to achieve a long-term or overall aim.

Goal: the object of a person’s ambition or effort; an aim or desired result.

(Oxford Dictionary)

It is not uncommon advice - and many people follow it when the New Year dawns - to set yourself some goals. The resolutions for the New Year are meant to invigorate your resolve and give you a definite destination towards which you can direct your self-discipline and efforts. Sad to say, when the goals aren’t reached, the whole enterprise just seems de-motivating. 

But there’s another reason why goal-setting can subtly sabotage success: goals can be self-limiting. Say you decide to set a goal to improve your income by $10,000 in the next year. You may well improve your income by $10,000 in the next year; but with less limits on your horizon it could have been $20,000. The $10,000 became a self-limiting prophecy. 

Alan Weiss has said: “The worst thing about having a plan is that you hit it.”

A goal could be defined as your ultimate objective, while strategy is about how you are going to get to that objective. Try making some “strategic objectives” that will lead you in the right direction, towards an open-ended and non-limiting goal. Here’s an example:

"Our strategy is to increase our client base in X-country by translating our materials, attending conferences in X-country, forming strategic alliances there, training our people in  local cultural understanding; with a goal of increasing our profits from business in X-country by a larger percentage every year."


Sounds good to me.