New Internet Top Level Domains for Building Products

Move over .com and .net, the internet will soon have many more top level domains that will offer exciting branding possibilities for the building products industry.  Imagine, for example:

jobsite.camera 
hardhat.clothing
masonry.contractors
plaster.construction
earthmoving.equipment
resort.estate
kitchen.gallery
signage.graphics
carpet.guru
realestate.holdings
solidstate.lighting
barrier-free.plumbing
BIM.technology
sustainable.ventures

These and other extensions will be released soon, and internet service providers are already taking reservations.  

Even if you do not actively use one of these top name domains, you may want to buy your brand name to prevent mischief by competitors and to protect your trademarks.  For example, Juno.lighting, Caterpillar.equipment, and Sloan.plumbing.

Of course, labor organizations and professional societies may want to get into the game. Consider, for example:

specifiersR.sexy

Defend your trademarks

Escalator originated as a trademarked term for the Otis Elevator Company's moving staircase, first introduced at the Paris Exposition in 1900. Because Otis did little to protect its rights to the mark, a 1950 court ruling moved escalator into the public domain.

You should escalate the value of your brand, protecting it from a into the public domain.

Based on: http://www.merriam-webster.com/top-ten-lists/top-10-words-from-trademarks-vol-2/escalate.html#U6cwBt1Lc9DXdUzX.99

Trademark this Title™

I delight in creating meaningful phrases that express the identity of my clients' brands. I encourage clients to seek trademark registration ® for these phrases when appropriate, and to mark them with a ™ when registration is not possible.  (The ® mark provides greater legal protection than does a ™.)

I recently saw a website that appears to be misusing trademarks. Fentress Architects, a firm that does many airport terminals and other major public projects, enumerates eight principles to which they aspire. As a good marketeer, the firm has branded their principles as Touchstones of Design(tm). So far so good.

But then they claim the following touchstone phrases as trademarks:

1. Discover the Natural Order™
2. Use Context to Create Identity™
3. Let Culture Guide Design™
4. Celebrate the Entry™
5. Listen Closely™
6. Stay Focused™
7. Restrain the Ego™
8. Design for People™

Give me a break. These are not trademarks -- they are part of the architectural ethos and express ideas every architect learns in school or in the first few years of practice.

But here is the best part -- The firm has the chutzpah to say, under the Design for People™ label:

"Truly great architecture
is not controlled by catchphrases 
of the time."

(Emphasis added.) Having listed eight catchphrases (nine if we count Touchstones of Design™, the firm tries to shrug off catchphrases. I am surprised they didn't put a ™ after "catchphrases of the time".

LESSONS WE CAN LEARN
Use trademarks in moderation. Use too many and you start to look like you are trying too hard and maybe aren't as good as you claim.

Use trademarks wisely. Trademarks require protection. To secure the firm's trademark rights to "Listen Closely" or the phrases, the firm will have to monitor other businesses in their industry and pursue legal actions against violators.  This is a fight they will lose; an online search finds nearly half a million webpages that use "listen closely" in conjunction with architects or architecture.

Introduce your copywriter and your intellectual property manager. If your lawyer goes through a website aggressively flagging trademarks, make sure the copywriter doesn't badmouth catchphrases.

--------------
Ironically, the firm does not denote trademarks on items that are clearly trademarks, like its distinctive logo.

Creating New Words

Construction is a field where new technologies and practices often justify the invention of a new term. As an example, I coined the phrase, "studcast" to describe a new type of wall panel that consisted of a hybrid of prefabricated light-gage steel frame with a thin precast concrete veneer. I offered the term to all the manufacturers of this type of product, and most of them now use it to as a standardized, simple, and descriptive term.

However, some invented terms are unnecessary and can lead to confusion.  A case in point is the recently coined term, "civionics".

I first encountered the term in the article "New civionics technologies for structural health monitoring" in the November 2010 issue of CE News. While the article shares valuable information about the evolving science of structural health monitoring. I question whether the use of the term "civionics" was equally valuable.

The author, Nathan Yang, defines the term as "the synergistic combination of civil engineering, electrical engineering, computer engineering, photonics, and other disciplines for [structural health monitoring]. This definition suggests that "civionics" is an equivalent term for "structural health monitoring", a field that already encompasses a variety of disciplines. Indeed, electrical and computer engineering are already integrated into the practice of civil engineering. In this case, "civionics" is a word of of questionable value in a field already cluttered with jargon.

A search of the CE News website reviews that "civionic" has not previously been used in the publication. Similarly, a search of the internet reveals that the term has few users -- most of its occurrences on the internet result from one site quoting another. A similar concern has been raised by a commentator on Google Talk who opines, "All of the references describe [civionics] as an emerging field, yet they seem to point in a circular manner as to establishing the notability of this term. Wikipedia is not a place to establish notability. So if this term is not widely used in the engineering field, it should not have an article here." Nor, in my opinion, should notability be established by an oblique reference in a magazine article.

But marketing is marketing, and I note that the author of the CE News article works for a company that sells electronics to the Civil Engineering community. Maybe he feels his company will benefit from embracing new term. How ironic, then, that the term "civionic" does not appear in his website, either.

USGBC: Do Not Use "GA" for LEED Green Associate

According to an email from the USGBC Education Provider Network today:

On October 1st, 2010 All USGBC Education Providers must permanently cease to use the term “GA” when referencing USGBC’s LEED Green Associate exam and/or credential in any printed manner or official reference to the exam or credential. The correct terminology is “LEED Green Associate exam” and “LEED Green Associate credential.” These names may not be shortened to “GA,” as this moniker is trademarked by Green Advantage, Inc. [Emphasis added]

I suspect we might see a name change for this credential, as "LEED Green Associate Credential" is quite a mouthful and doesn't fit well on a business card. For now, though, if anyone on your team has or is pursuing this credential, check all your literature, websites, LinkedIn profiles, etc. to be sure you are using the correct terminology.

This is also a good reminder to always be very diligent in your research when naming new products or companies, or developing new corporate language. It is not fun to invest all the time and effort in launching a new name only to have it benefit another company, plus convincing the customers that just adopted the new term to change again. This happened to us last year when we discovered the name we had been using for 25 years for our popular and highly-recognized sales training program had been trademarked by another company 27 years ago.

Do the research up front; save yourself the headache later.

Building an Intellectual Property Portfolio

Sales and profits are certainly an important measure of value, but most successful businesses also build the value of the worth of their firms by building a portfolio of intellectual property. Patents, trade secrets, copyrights, and trademarks are the fruit of a company's creativity and must be protected.

With this in mind, I am pleased to report that one of our clients has had their brand registered as a trademark by the US Patent and Trademark Office. Chusid Associates helped the founders of Lythic Solutions, Inc. select the name of their start-up company, and then helped guide them through the process of applying for and obtaining trademark registration for LYTHIC.

The firm is well on its way to creating brand awareness among targeted prospects.