Criminal Defense

There’s been buzz over the past few weeks concerning how Cond Nast, the New York Times, and other publishing companies are busily preparing digital versions of their various publications. The gist is that they want to be ready for the only-rumored, yet heavily hyped, Apple Tablet. Apparently, the Kids From Cupertino have achieved such a level of credibility that corporations will pour money into preparing for a tablet-style computer that Apple might be thinking about launching maybe next year.

Here we have one more piece of evidence to indicate that the written word has begun its unavoidable migration from paper to the digital media. Good news for tree huggers; bad news for Hammermill, Champion, and anyone who owns a printing press. Not that the tactile enjoyment of a glossy magazine or well-produced book is likely to be replaced by a sterile LCD screen any time soon. And we won’t be closing libraries and replacing them with giant servers in the foreseeable future. Of more immediate concern, however, is the effect the presumed Apple Tablet and the all-too-real Amazon Kindle may have on the source of all that content – the writers.

Over the past 20 years, digitization has changed the music industry. Album sales have declined over the past decade to the point where combined CD and download sales now represent only a fraction of what CD sales alone accounted for in 2000. Thousands of recording industry jobs have disappeared; so have thousands of retail record stores across the country. Today, the primary revenue source for the artists is live performances. Being a rock star ain’t what it used to be.

Other forms of digitized entertainment, such as cinema and video games, are managing to hold their own against pirate attacks for the time being. But as books become easily shared digital files, how will the authors and their publishers be able to control unlicensed dissemination of the work? Will a Stephen King, a John Grisham, or a Dan Brown continue to produce entertaining works of fiction when the sales dollars begin to decline? Unlike music, there isn’t a very lucrative market for live performances by an author.

There is no money in poetry, of course, and poets continue to write, don’t they? The difference is that poets write for the purpose of self-expression, not to entertain others. A major difference between art and entertainment is that the latter requires a revenue stream to justify its existence. This isn’t to say that works produced to entertain cannot also be art, but let’s not forget that Shakespeare wrote plays to earn a living.

You cannot own what we call “intellectual property” any more than you can own an idea. What you can hold onto is the right to control the reproduction and dissemination of its physical manifestations – hence the term “copyright”. Should writers and publishers be in a hurry to embrace a method of distribution so inherently vulnerable to illicit reproduction and sharing? If you had a novel going to press tomorrow, would you be willing to allow it to be published digitally as well? Do you see any way to protect book authors in the future… before they all turn to writing for the stage or screen? I’d be interested to know if you do.

By,

Robert Mattson

Executive Vice President- Creative Director & copywriter

Your branding differentiates your products and services from those of your competitors, it lets your customers develop loyalty based on expectations of quality and service, and it can attract prospective clients and consumers. These are just some of the ways in which value accumulates in your brand, and just some of the features that competing businesses might try to exploit.

Very often businesses do not really appreciate the value of their brand names and logos until they are faced with imitators, but for those that have overlooked effective protection that can be too late to avoid expensive legal disputes. Passing off actions are the way to combat the use of unregistered brand devices by competitors, but the costs can be considerable, and even a successful action might not yield entirely satisfactory results.

Benefits of trade mark registration

Registering trade marks early on can prevent these expensive disputes from arising, and provide effective ways of enforcing your rights in the event that they do occur. The benefits of trade mark registration include:

- Notice to the world of your brand (the trade mark registers are publicly accessible)

- Dissuading use of your brand without permission

- Notification when other parties try to register similar brand names

- Mechanisms to prevent counterfeiting

- An asset you can license or sell

The application process

The application process varies depending on the countries in which you wish to register your trade mark, but generally involves filing a base application with either the UK Intellectual Property Office, or the Office of Harmonisation for the Internal Market (OHIM) for a European trade mark. The steps involved in a UK application which is unopposed by other trade mark holders are:

1. Search the registers

2. File your application

3. Receive the examination report

4. Advertise the application in the official journal

5. Application is granted

6. Receive your certificate

and the process can take from 4 – 8 months.

Choosing a service provider

There are numerous service providers that will offer to help you register a trademark, but it is important to remember that the field is unregulated. This means that it can be difficult to ensure that your service provider will offer the level of service necessary for effective protection.

When choosing a service provider to register your mark there are a number of different considerations to take into account. At the forefront of the minds of many people will be price, and the question “What am I getting for the price I am paying?”. But bear in mind that quality is important – you must be sure that they have the necessary expertise to secure adequate protection that actually covers your business. An amazing number of registered trade marks do not actually provide the correct scope of protection.

Finally, is the service provider able to assist you with any complications arising in the course of the application process, or provide you with aftercare to help you enforce your rights post-registration?

By using registered solicitors or trade mark attorneys with wide experience of trade mark issues you can avoid the need to bring in additional consultants at great expense if there are difficulties with your application. Specialists will also be able to advise you on how to police your trade mark, and enforce your rights where necessary.