What Does It Mean When You Trademark A Name?
Your brand name should be a “barrier to entry” – protecting you against the threats that competitors potentially present. Just as patenting an invention gives you a monopoly right over your invention and acts as a barrier to entry against competitors, so names are also important barriers to entry provided they are well chosen. Not…Read more »
Licensing or Franchising To Take Your Business to the Next Level
Licensing and franchising are effective ways to take your business to the next level. Businesses in the UK that are thinking about whether to franchise their business have the option to use a simpler, cheaper approach to achieve the same ends, namely licensing. What are the considerations when choosing between the two options? Both options…Read more »
Building a Business on Solid IP Foundation Using Process
IP is quite straightforward when you understand the fundamentals. Get them right in your business and you can build the business on solid foundations long term. I suggest you start by reviewing what intellectual property means because it really helps to see the big picture. When you’re not familiar with intellectual property terminology, you don’t know whether it’s…Read more »
Image Rights. Do They Prevent You Using a Celebrity’s Image?
In the lead up to the Christmas and new year season, most of us are accustomed to seeing television advertisements featuring well-known actors and personalities endorsing a range of luxury products such as perfumes and watches. Indeed the John Lewis Christmas advert is a television advertising campaign which is released in the build-up to Christmas.…Read more »
Design Your Business Brand
As Steve Jobs noted, design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works. Designing your business brand, methodology or process is therefore about a lot more than getting a visual identity for it. So, learn to leave Visual Identity…Read more »
Is Branding A Superficial Cosmetic Activity or A Substantive Exercise?
This is a question I used to wonder about. Deep down I believed ‘brand’ and ‘branding’ to be essentially a surface, cosmetic exercise. As for ‘personal branding’ the activity had connotations of people learning to be false and less than real. After all, if they spent time thinking about how they wanted to come across,…Read more »
Brand Strategy Is Essential For Success In Business
I recently wrote an extensive piece Brand Strategy Why Every Business Needs One on my personal blog. Brand strategy is one of the most important issues to deal with if you want to create a business that grows in brand value and delivers more leads and opportunities. We’re developing a methodology to support our clients…Read more »
Internet Rules – Changes The Rules of Branding
The internet has changed the rules for many industries. In my books Legally Branded and Intellectual Property Revolution, I explained how the internet impacts the intellectual property industry. Here is how I see it changing the branding industry, at least as regards the branding of service-based businesses. Branding Industry Approach The branding industry has…Read more »
Intellectual Property Rights – Frightening?
I was speaking to a designer recently who said that people find IP rights very frightening. That intrigued me. Why fear IP? Is it that you fear what you don’t understand? Is it that IP is a nuisance perhaps? Whatever the reasons for this designer’s comment the reality is that IP is part and parcel…Read more »
Copyright Infringement and Copyright Disputes
The most common copyright dispute we see involves an image used on a website which the website owner does not own or have permission to use. The reason this happens is that either a web designer has grabbed an image from the internet and used it in the site design, or someone within the business…Read more »