SOCIAL MEDIA
LOOKING FOR THE COMPLETE PICTURE
No-one can ignore social media. They are important not just for the younger generation—they are relevant to all ages. And using them has become a must in the business world. Larissa Best and Catherine McGirr explain.
It is no longer enough merely to communicate ‘to’ your customers and clients; it’s also important to ‘listen and learn’, test new ideas and respond to comments—good as well as bad—directly. As Eric Qualman, author of Socialnomics states: “We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media. Te question is, how well we do it.”
Te aim of this article is not to discuss the importance of proper protection of trademarks and brands in social media, but rather to consider what measures should be taken when looking for new trademarks, from both legal and marketing perspectives.
Before starting we must remember one important fact about trademarks: they are territorial limited rights. Te Internet has challenged this. Even before the rise of social media, the web had virtually
42
eliminated geographic isolation, creating a borderless cyberspace where territorial limitation is challenged. Search engines today take little consideration of where you are. Search results may be found for services next door, in your town or across the globe.
Te rise of social media sites has added a
further complication. Marketers used to control interaction with clients using one-way media such as television, radio, magazines and, in its earliest form, the Internet. Initially the Internet was controlled by academia and business, and the only interactivity open to the public was the ability to search websites. With the arrival of blogs and then social media sites, control has extended beyond this small group and is now open to all. Twitter and Facebook, to name a couple, and virtual world sites, allow their members to adopt user names, and
Trademarks Brands and the Internet Volume 1, Issue 2
create personalised sub-domains, virtual products and avatars. Now anyone can create a username or app that could, in the future, be considered a non- registered right. And as our children get older they will become more aware of the potential value of their intellectual property.
Te erosion of territorial limitation and the
opening of access to all have created a double headache for trademark searching, making it an even more complicated art form. Is it still safe to limit your search to your specific jurisdiction? Can research be limited to trademark databases only? How far do we need to search to be comfortable with the name selected?
While the IP industry has been concerned with potential infringement, cybersquatting and how
www.worldipreview.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68