Word: trademarking
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
While voter turn-out usually dips in an off-election year like these, longtime residents worry that Cambridge has lost its trademark activism...
...handles licensing chores that include research, legal work and quality control for its client corporations, gives some measure of the new American interest in landing on European soil. Most of Equity's 100 or so clients are eyeing Continental markets or have already taken the plunge. Says GM's trademark-and-copyright counsel Ken Enborg: "Europe is on the verge of a corporate brand-licensing explosion...
Even in those days, GM was spending $2 million to $3 million a year to fight trademark-infringement cases on the periphery of its main line of business, trying to rid the market of unauthorized Chevy baseball caps and Corvette T shirts that were obviously striking a chord with consumers. That's when it hit Enborg that it would be easier--and more profitable--for the automaker to meet the obvious market demand for those goods itself by licensing its brand names to handpicked manufacturers. Today, GM has more than 1,200 licensing agreements generating annual revenues of $1.1 billion...
...just put out a doodad with a name slapped on it," insists Michael Stone, co-director of New York's Beanstalk Group, another large licensing agency. Missteps abound among those who have held that simplistic view. Take Virgin Clothes: British entrepreneur Richard Branson has successfully etched his Virgin trademark onto a host of products, from CDs to cola. But his apparel line is struggling, mainly because its initial styles were pricey and somewhat conservative, which went against the trendy and value-conscious image originally established by the airline Virgin Atlantic...
...suit a British shopper, but French and German consumers want 100% cotton T shirts only, please. Licensing executive Gianfranco Mari, head of the agency DIC 2 in Milan, underlines that "what sells in Italy may not sell in France." Then there is the tangle of various legal requirements and trademark laws in each nation, which the European Union has not exterminated. "Those laws can keep the lawyers happy for years," says Jaguar's Maries...