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I am headed to the annual Legal Marketing Association Conference (“LMA”) in Atlanta next week. I’ll be joined Dan Mintz, who heads our sales and business development. Dan’s a good person who comes with a lot of passion and care. Like me, he sees business development as all about relationships. People buy people, not products. So don’t be surprised if Dan reaches out to say hi or to meet with you – if he hasn’t already. With LexBlog’s evolution from solely a professional turnkey blog publishing platform to a legal news and commentary network with over 22,000 law blog contributors, the feel of LMA has changed for us. As the publisher of legal news and commentary, we’re looking to help, at no cost, law firms and those agencies helping law firms.
Don’t get me wrong, we still have a business model founded on our managed WordPress platform for blogs, micro-sites and digital magazines. Mintz has lined up meetings with a number of law firms and digital agencies. Agencies and PR professionals are looking to use LexBlog’s platform as a more powerful and less costly platform than something they development on their own. Socially, I am always happy to get together. Look me up or drop me an email if you’d like to get together. Last, but not least, LexBlog’s Beer for Bloggers comes to Atlanta – or at least a version of it – on Monday evening at 5 at Gibney’s Pub, 231 Peachtree St NE – a short walk from the conference hotel. Siteimprove and LexBlog sponsoring a joint happy hour for members of the Legal Marketing Association Marketing Technology, PR & Communications, and Social & Digital Media SIGs. All who attend will be eligible for our door prize – an Apple Watch courtesy of Infinite PR. See you in Atlanta. via Blogger See You In Atlanta Next Week for the LMA Annual Conference I use Twitter more to give shout outs to the good stuff being done by others, than to broadcast about LexBlog and our doings. I have always had a hard time thinking I did something that qualified for bragging. Maybe that’s my Irish Catholic roots and my being an entrepreneur my whole life — nothing’s ever good enough and there’s no reason not to feel guilty. Selfishly though, it just always felt good to make others feel good about what they’re doing. Lawyers, the organizations supporting access to legal services and the innovators bringing us the future of the law also need an attagirl or attaboy now and again. Sharing the good of others, rather than talking about my company and our products, is the most effective method of business development I have ever used. Dale Carnegie, in one of the best-selling books of all time, ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ laid out six business principles for making people like you – essentials he thought needed for business development. Each of Carnegie’s points apply to how you as a lawyer can use Twitter to make people like you.
I use Feedly, a news aggregator, and Twitter lists in most of my use of Twitter. Feedly gives me news stories on subjects and from certain sources. Sharing the story, with an excerpt or quote from it, and also mentioning the person’s name (Twitter handle) by attributing the story/quote to them seems to work. Twitter lists enable me to see what the people and organizations I’d like to know are sharing. By retweeting with an excerpt of the underlying story they shared or a kudos to the person or organization in the story – or to the party tweeting – seems to enable to make friends. With a decade or two under my belt, I’ve found generating business to be about friendships and people liking each other. Unlike the “Oracle of Omaha” Warren Buffett, though, I never realized Dale Carnegie’s course could be the most valuable degree I could get. I’m learning. via Blogger Lawyers and Twitter: Six Ways To Make People Like You Last week, we saw the latest installment in the “trademark bullying” saga. But this time was different. Instead of lawyers fighting amongst themselves, DuetsBlog brought out the big gun: Seth Godin. You can read the entire piece here. I like Seth Godin, and so do lots of other people (hence, the “big gun”). I read the comments (over 30 from my count). It seems to make people feel better to have someone with credibility give voice to their frustration. I’m not against feeling better; mental health is a big deal. But as I read situation after situation, I am struck by how cases of trademark bullying almost always turn out: The small business loses. Perhaps they don’t lose in the legal sense, but they lose in nearly every sense that matters to a small business: Time, Energy, Money, Resources, and Attention. Every moment addressing a trademark issue is a moment not invested in their business. Small businesses do not have any of those assets to spare. Large organizations do. They have legal teams that shield their workers from the ongoing drama. They have marketing budgets to drown out negative publicity. If all else fails, they have the resources to outlast you. In over 10 years of public attention, is it any wonder their behavior hasn’t changed? Public shaming feels good, but it is not working. It’s time to act. To act, small business owners need reliable information about their risks. They need that information in advance of a trademark filing, and even in advance of first usage – after-the-fact litigation or advertising insurance don’t solve the problem. And finally, they need accessible and affordable information – calling your lawyer before each decision is not realistic. In other words, small business owners need an ounce of (affordable) prevention, not a pound of cure. Here’s my proposal. To explain it, I am going to adapt Guy Kawasaki’s new business pitch format. At the end, I am going to ask you to invest. Let’s go. Define the problem.Trademark owners rightfully defend what they’ve built. However, when they overstep, there is no downside for their behavior. Even if they “lose” in court, they don’t really lose. They create a “chilling effect” for future conflicts. Additionally, they can restrict the distraction in their organization to only their legal team (who, to them, this is not a distraction). By contrast, there is plenty of downside for the small business owner. An unfavorable result in a lawsuit can put a small company out of business. But even if you win, you lose. Distractions are killers. How does your product solve that problem?Prevention is the best cure. Imagine a “Trademark Risk Score” much like a credit score. At “1” might be a name you completely invent from random characters. At “100” might be naming your tech company “Big Apple Computers” – an algorithm automatically scores everything in between. Underlying magic or technology.Building the algorithm seems easy, but it is not. Factors could include the number of existing trademarks, the size of the companies with those marks, matches in categories of use, length of trademark ownership, recent court decisions or filings, etc. But those factors don’t make an algorithm any more than ingredients don’t make a recipe. The “magic” here is using professional attorneys to “train” the algorithm and improve it. Business model.Small business owners could buy access to the system as a one-time purchase (like a “risk check”) or as a subscription (like a “regular checkup”). Accelerators and angels offer this subscription as a service to their startups. I could even see entrepreneurial publications (cough, cough) providing this to their subscribers as an add-on. Lawyers could advertise their services. You get the idea. Go-To-Market plan.Aggregators of small businesses are key to the strategy; reaching them 1:1 is cost prohibitive. Fortunately, there are plenty of accelerators, gig economy supporters (e.g. WeWork), and trademark lawyers in the world. Competitive advantages.The biggest competitor to this idea is a data aggregator named Trademarkia. However, their service still relies on you as the small business owner to know what you’re looking for (and I don’t think their search functions or aggregation is all that “smart”). If you’re confused, they offer expensive add-on services ranging in cost up to $10,000. That’s not going to fly for the average small business owner. They need something easier to understand and digest. In this proposal, you plug in a few details, the algorithm spits out a risk score. Is it perfect? No. Will it protect you? No. But it will give you critical information you need to make an informed decision on next steps based on your risk tolerance. Management team.This solution will require three key groups of people – tech (to write the learning algorithm), lawyers (to train it), and marketers (to promote it). I wonder if I know any of those people who might be reading this? Financial projections.Based on the 300,000 (or so) new businesses started in the United States each year, and a 20% penetration rate for my TAM, and a $100 subscription price, I calculate about $6 million in annual revenue. Back of the napkin, but it’s a business. Rollout plan and milestones.I am putting my money where my mouth is – with hard cash. I am committing publicly to the first $1,000. That’s (obviously) not enough to get started, and there is hardly enough detail in this “proposal” to make a formal investment decision, but perhaps it’s enough to get others interested and begin the conversation. Hate this idea? Awesome! Use it (copyright free) to come up with your own idea. Just don’t keep public shaming. That’s not helping anyone. The post Public shaming is not a solution to trademark bullying. Let’s build one. appeared first on DuetsBlog. via Blogger Public shaming is not a solution to trademark bullying. Let’s build one. What if there was legal news service, ala UPI, that syndicated legal news, information and commentary so that such news and commentary could be published by third-parties? UPI (United Press International), founded in 1907, at its peak had more than 2,000 full-time employees, 200 news bureaus in 92 countries and more than 6,000 media subscribers, including newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations. As a kid I thought it incredibly neat that our local daily small town newspaper could pull and publish UPI stories and photos from around the world, in what looked like instantaneous fashion. Most of us who are old enough think Walter Cronkite broke the news of President Kennedy’s assassination. Not so, Cronkite got the news from UPI. The essence of UPI, as well as AP and Reuters is syndication. Collect the news in various formats (text, audio and video) and syndicate it to those in the news business. With the decline in the traditional news business, these news services are no longer what that they used to be. The legal news and journalism business is also on the decline.
What’s killing traditional legal journalism even more is the importance of the individual citizen journalist and what that citizen journalist should own and control in today’s Internet world. Legal journalism has been democratized.
With all of these law blogs, why not have a “UPI” syndicating this legal news and commentary? The content could be syndicated to subscribers licensing a “syndication portal” displaying the stories the subscriber saw as relevant. Subscribers could include associations, law firms and other organization who had a ready reason to license a “syndication portal,” whether it be for member relationships, brand building or otherwise. Content could also be syndicated in niche focused “magazines” comprised primarily of syndicated legal news and commentary. Most important in such legal syndication is it being all about the individual law blogger, not the third party publisher as in days past. A hub for legal blogs with accompanying technology for “syndication portals” could make legal news syndication a reality. via Blogger Syndication of Legal News Let’s be very clear, today is April Fools’ Day, but this is not an April Fools’ Joke. It’s not every day Seth Godin volunteers a guest post, but Thursday was that day. Friday we published Stop Bullying the Entrepreneurs, 33 comments and counting. This isn’t the first time Seth has spoken out against trademark bullying, he’s on record before noting: “When a brand becomes a bully, it loses something vital.” And: “If you want to keep the taco place down the street from infringing on your business, don’t hire lawyers to hate on their slogan. Make better tacos instead.” On Friday Seth went to public bat for kindred spirit and entrepreneur Jen Lehner: Seth called out Entrepreneur Magazine for going after the name and mark for Jen’s podcast, “The Front Row Entrepreneur” — described by Jen this way: “The Front Row Entrepreneur gives you a front row seat to all of the most exciting people and happenings in online marketing and entrepreneurship.” To Seth’s point, it’s difficult to create a podcast designed for an entire class of people known as entrepreneurs and not have the ability to include “entrepreneur” in the name, because it is: “One of the only words available to describe a person who builds an enterprise bigger than herself, often using outside resources.” Actually, that’s a fair point, given the special meaning of the word — no other word that I could find with a thesaurus really captures the same and complete essence of the word “entrepreneur,” not “administrator, contractor, executive, manager, producer, backer, businessperson, founder, industrialist, organizer, promoter,” etc. In fact, the Examining Attorney who approved Jen’s application to register THE FRONT ROW ENTREPRENEUR as a mark for podcasts, recognized the special meaning of the word, noting it to be descriptive of Jen’s podcasts: “A person who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for a business venture.” So, the USPTO told Jen to disclaim exclusive rights in the term ENTREPRENEUR in THE FRONT ROW ENTREPRENEUR mark for podcasts, and she did, but to satisfy Entrepreneur Magazine she also apparently needed to withdraw her registration application and, in terms of future use, contort the more efficient name into the more wordy mouthful: THE FRONT ROW PODCAST FOR ENTREPRENEURS. So, what does ENTREPRENEUR mean anyway? Clearly much more than a particular magazine or other offerings of that magazine. Might it even designate a category or perhaps a subgroup of magazines — those about and for an entrepreneur? If Entrepreneur Magazine is not careful, one of these days, it might find itself in a position tangling with an enforcement target willing to go the distance, finding out the hard way, if ENTREPRENEUR has become generic (part of the public domain). The post What Does Entrepreneur Mean Anyway? appeared first on DuetsBlog. via Blogger What Does Entrepreneur Mean Anyway? It’s not good marketing and I’m pretty sure it’s not good law, either. It seems as though Entrepreneur magazine (who should know better) is working with Latham and Watkins (who should certainly know better) to persist in their relentless efforts to bully entrepreneurs to stop using the word ‘entrepreneur’. And yes, it’s a word. Not a fanciful or inherently distinctive trademark, a word. Almost 800,000,000 matches in Google. One of the only words available to describe a person who builds an enterprise bigger than herself, often using outside resources. Without that word, it’s hard to describe the work. Poignantly, it’s interesting to see that they’re not going after people with a ton of resources. If Brian Koppelman, David Levien and Showtime started going after billionaires for using the word ‘Billions’, I’d call it a fair fight. A dumb fight, but a fair one. But deep in the bowels of the Latham offices in San Diego (which, fortunately, hasn’t been sued by the producers of Anchorman for trademark infringement) there are young lawyers, early in their career, sending nasty letters to entrepreneurs (there’s that word again) like Jen Lehner. You can see her work here: jenlehner.com/blog Apparently, the powers that be decided that her podcast called “Front Row Entrepreneur” somehow infringed on a magazine that hit its peak in 2013. How? “Front Row” modifies the noun. The trademark is the modifier, not the noun. Front Row is a trademark. Entrepreneur is simply a word. With great cost and hassle, fledgling entrepreneurs (there’s that word again) who have finally gotten their business off the ground now have to dig in to either fight a huge law firm and their misguided but well-funded lawyers–or spend the money to change what they already built. Who, exactly, does this help? By engaging in this behavior, Entrepreneur might think it is building a strong trademark; instead, it is throwing away the very purpose of any trademark: To be a symbol of goodwill within a community. Amongst entrepreneurs, it is simply becoming a hated one. Better, I think, to spend the time and the money building something that entrepreneurs actually like and respect. The post Stop bullying the entrepreneurs appeared first on DuetsBlog. via Blogger Stop bullying the entrepreneurs The saltiest trademark news in the last week surrounds singer Cardi B’s application to register the marks “Okurr” and “Okurrr,” both slang for “Okay???”–but pronounced in a hip, rolled-r trill, sometimes with a shady tone. Or, as Cardi describes, it: the sound of a “cold pigeon in New York City.” If you haven’t heard it said before, search no further than these humorous and fully-extra renditions by a few popular drag queens: As with most seemingly-overreaching trademark applications, Cardi’s registration of these popular words–particularly in the drag queen community–has been met with criticism. The public backlash is understandable; it brings to mind the concern that trademarking a term will take it out of the public domain and inhibit free speech and fair use. Though, to be fair, Cardi’s applications only seek to preclude use of the word on clothing and merchandise. But she acknowledges the registrations are, essentially, a cash grab. Indeed, trademarking common words appears to be a regular strategy for celebrities seeking to capitalize on words’ popularity. I’m reminded by the recent example of singer Will.I.Am attempting to trademark the phrase “willpower,” which was cancelled by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board because the mark was too similar to other existing marks and had no source-indicating distinctiveness. That is, the public did not strongly associate the word “willpower” with Will.I.Am, so Will.I.Am cannot claim exclusive use of the mark in commerce. But Cardi argues that “Okurrr” has become her famous slogan, buoyed by a Superbowl Pepsi ad featuring her using the phrase and instructing others on how to pronounce it correctly. And that brings me to the “T”–the truth–of the enforceability of Cardi’s registrations: it is unlikely that the general public would identify Cardi as the source of goods beat with “Okurrr” or similar marks because, in fact, “Cardi can’t honestly make the argument that she created the word.” Rather, according to the fiercest drag queen of them all, RuPaul, the credit goes to Broadway actress Laura Bell Bundy–even though RuPaul and other drag queens brought the phrase, which may have roots in African-American culture, to the runway, where it was picked up by the Kardashians and, now, Cardi B. The contextual history of Okurrr is important and cannot be overlooked in the distinctiveness and goodwill analysis. It not only undermines Cardi’s legitimate claim to exclusive nation-wide use of the mark in commerce, but also seriously calls into question the appropriateness of restricting use of the word by all others, including the communities from which it originates–and which much of the public likely identify as earlier or actual sources of the word. Thus, trademarking “Okurrr” is likely to lose from both a legal and PR standpoint. That’s a sickening realness, but not in a “feeling the fantasy” kind of way. Whether Cardi’s tuck-under will be allowed to stand, or the gag will be up, remains to be seen. At least one drag queen, Alaska, who is also known for her rendition of “Okurrr,” plans to clock Cardi’s conduct, potentially by challenging the registrations in court. Time will tell whether Cardi’s gambit will stay, or be asked to “sashay away.” The post Cardi B, You (Probably) Can’t Trademark “Okurrr,” Okay? appeared first on DuetsBlog. via Blogger Cardi B, You (Probably) Can’t Trademark “Okurrr,” Okay? It’s that time of year again, and we’re honored to share some wonderful news — hot off the press today — concerning the 2019 JD Supra Readers’ Choice Awards: For the third year in a row, we have been recognized as the Top law firm writing on Trademarks (incredibly, four of us made the Top Ten listing out of more than 1,200). Of course, we couldn’t achieve these lofty accolades without you, our dear readers, followers, and those who generously provide their valuable insights and comments. However you have found us, whether through JD Supra, LinkedIn, Twitter, or if you’ve been with us since the beginning, more than 10 years ago, we’re thrilled you have joined us on this journey, and thank you for your generous contributions! Each one of you inspire us to write clearly, also thanks to Jimmy John’s, for this reminder: The post More DuetsBlog Accolades, Thank You! appeared first on DuetsBlog. via Blogger More DuetsBlog Accolades, Thank You! |
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