Foreign Trademark Owner Statistics

How many trademark records exists for foreign based owners? 3,625,679.

Here's the search strategy:

not ("united states" Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada "New Hampshire" "New Jersey" "New Mexico" "New York" "North Carolina" "North Dakota" Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania "Rhode Island" "South Carolina" "South Dakota" Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington "West Virginia" Wisconsin Wyoming "american samoa" "federated states of micronesia" guam "northern mariana islands" "midway islands" "puerto rico" "u.s. virgin islands" "us virgin islands")[ow]

Okay, taking that search, I wanted to see what filing basis foreign owners use. So, here's the results:

1A (Filed under Section §1(a) {use in commerce}) - 153,409
1B (Filed under Section §1(b) {intent to use}) - 292,961
44D (Filed under Section §44(d) {foreign application}) - 139,686
44E (Filed under Section §44(e) {foreign registration}) - 96,358
66A (Filed under Section §66(a)) - 35,377
NO FILING BASIS (No filing basis claimed) - 555

So as with my filing habits post, the majority of foreign owners file under an intent to use basis, rather than based on a foreign trademark application or registration. But the numbers may be incomplete, becuase when you add up the above basis numbers you get 718,346. What happened to the other 2,907,333 records? What basis were they filed under? Most likely, the PTO did not record original filing basis from way back. If anyone knows the reason, please leave a comment in the comment section.

Here's the complete search strategies for the above results:

153,409
1a[ob] not ("united states" Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada "New Hampshire" "New Jersey" "New Mexico" "New York" "North Carolina" "North Dakota" Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania "Rhode Island" "South Carolina" "South Dakota" Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington "West Virginia" Wisconsin Wyoming "american samoa" "federated states of micronesia" guam "northern mariana islands" "midway islands" "puerto rico" "u.s. virgin islands" "us virgin islands")[ow]


292,961
1b[ob] not ("united states" Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada "New Hampshire" "New Jersey" "New Mexico" "New York" "North Carolina" "North Dakota" Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania "Rhode Island" "South Carolina" "South Dakota" Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington "West Virginia" Wisconsin Wyoming "american samoa" "federated states of micronesia" guam "northern mariana islands" "midway islands" "puerto rico" "u.s. virgin islands" "us virgin islands")[ow]


139,686
44d[ob] not ("united states" Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada "New Hampshire" "New Jersey" "New Mexico" "New York" "North Carolina" "North Dakota" Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania "Rhode Island" "South Carolina" "South Dakota" Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington "West Virginia" Wisconsin Wyoming "american samoa" "federated states of micronesia" guam "northern mariana islands" "midway islands" "puerto rico" "u.s. virgin islands" "us virgin islands")[ow]


96,358
44e[ob] not ("united states" Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada "New Hampshire" "New Jersey" "New Mexico" "New York" "North Carolina" "North Dakota" Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania "Rhode Island" "South Carolina" "South Dakota" Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington "West Virginia" Wisconsin Wyoming "american samoa" "federated states of micronesia" guam "northern mariana islands" "midway islands" "puerto rico" "u.s. virgin islands" "us virgin islands")[ow]


35,377
66a[ob] not ("united states" Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada "New Hampshire" "New Jersey" "New Mexico" "New York" "North Carolina" "North Dakota" Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania "Rhode Island" "South Carolina" "South Dakota" Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington "West Virginia" Wisconsin Wyoming "american samoa" "federated states of micronesia" guam "northern mariana islands" "midway islands" "puerto rico" "u.s. virgin islands" "us virgin islands")[ow]


555
("no filing basis")[ob] not ("united states" Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada "New Hampshire" "New Jersey" "New Mexico" "New York" "North Carolina" "North Dakota" Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania "Rhode Island" "South Carolina" "South Dakota" Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington "West Virginia" Wisconsin Wyoming "american samoa" "federated states of micronesia" guam "northern mariana islands" "midway islands" "puerto rico" "u.s. virgin islands" "us virgin islands")[ow]


Technorati Tags: trademark, trademark registration, intent to use, use in commerce, trademark search, land grab, trademark application, statistics, search

A peek into Sun's Open Source Approval Process, with a Trademark Tidbit to Boot

Tim Bray gives us a peek into Sun's internal Open Source Review process. Tim wrote some code he called the Atom Protocol Exerciser, or APE for short. He wanted to release it, but he had to go through Sun's approval process first.

There are a bunch of steps. You have to get approval from your own management chain up to the nearest Vice-President. Along the way, you need sign-off from Brand Management, Trademark Legal, and International Trade Legal (export-control regulations are a cross big companies like Sun have to bear).

And here's the trademark tidbit:

The one that was the most work was the Trademark piece. You just can’t assert “I’ll call this Foobar” and publish the code; lots of good names are taken and if you work for a public company, you really don’t want to accidentally step on someone else’s trademark with your coolio project name because if you do, they’re gonna call their attorneys first thing.

I actually wanted the trademark people to check out both “Atom Protocol Exerciser” and “Ape”; they told me in the politest possible way that this costs real money and real time so would I please bloody well pick one; fair enough. *** Checking out names takes time—a couple of weeks in my case—that’s just a fact of life.

There you have it. Clearing trademarks costs real money and real time. But if you don't take that step, Tim properly states that the first person the owner of the mark you infringe is going to call is their attorney.

Technorati Tags: trademark, search, trademark search, clearance, open source, approval process, Sun Microsystems

Creating Brand Names

Chris Brown over at Branding & Marketing links to five naming tutorials and also to The Best Brands of the World (woorrlld, I say in Keith Olbermann fashion). Of course, make sure you clear your perfect brand name prior to making a substantial investment in its use.

Technorati Tags: branding, naming, trademark search, clearance

Filing Habits

For 2006, there was a total of 276,165 applications filed with the PTO {2006????[fd]}.

162,494 (58.8%) were filed as intent to use applications {2006????[fd] and (1B)[ob]}.

102,035 (36.9%) were filed as in use applications {2006????[fd] and (1A)[ob]}.

7820 (2.8%) were filed on the basis of a foreign application {2006????[fd] and (44d)[ob]}.

3606 (1.3%) were filed on the basis of a foreign registration {2006????[fd] and (44e)[ob]}.

As seen by the above numbers, a majority of the trademark applications filed in 2006 were intent to use applications. However, when you look at the filings of some of the top brands listed below, 92.3% of their applications were intent to use applications.

What do these numbers tell us? Well, for one these big companies tend to file applications for trademarks before they actually use the marks. Presumably, they have conducted trademark searches to clear the marks. For them, trademark protection is a before-thought rather than an afterthought. All to often, smaller firms use trademarks blindly. They think that they'll get around to thinking about trademark protection latter. Sometimes they only think about it when they get a nasty cease and desist letter from one of my colleagues.

Hopefully that won't be you. Learn and follow what the big boys do. Conduct clearance searches first. Then file an intent to use application to stake your claim. Remember, trademarks are a valuable asset to your firm. Big firms see it as a big land grab. They know their value, and they invest time and money to protect it. They don't want to spend money on something already claimed by another, and once they find an appropriate mark for their goods or service, they stake a claim early so as to deter others from adopting the mark.

Company	2006 Totals	Search Strategy	1(B) 2006 Totals	Search Strategy
The Coca-Cola Company	141	("coca cola")[on] and 2006????[fd]	129 91.5%	("coca cola")[on] and 2006????[fd] and (1B)[ob]
Microsoft Corporation	130	(microsoft)[on] and 2006????[fd]	123 94.6%	(microsoft)[on] and 2006????[fd] and (1B)[ob]
International Business Machines Corporation	26	("international business machines")[on] and 2006????[fd]	21 80.8%	("international business machines")[on] and 2006????[fd] and (1b)[ob]
General Electric Company	93	("general electric")[on] and 2006????[fd]	77 82.8%	("general electric")[on] and 2006????[fd] and (1b)[ob]
Intel Corporation	5	(intel)[on] and 2006????[fd]	5 100%	(intel)[on] and 2006????[fd] and (1b)[ob]
Nokia Corporation*	13	(nokia)[on] and 2006????[fd]	1 7.7%	(nokia)[on] and 2006????[fd] and (1b)[ob]
Toyota Motor Corporation	30	(toyota)[on] and 2006????[fd]	26 86.7%	(toyota)[on] and 2006????[fd] and (1b)[ob]
Disney Enterprises, Inc.	432	(disney)[on] and 2006????[fd]	394 91.2%	(disney)[on] and 2006????[fd] and (1b)[ob]
McDonald’s Corporation	30	(mcdonald)[on] and ("oak brook")[ow] and 2006????[fd]	19 63.3%	(mcdonald)[on] and ("oak brook")[ow] and 2006????[fd] and (1b)[ob]
The Procter & Gamble Company	211	("Procter & Gamble")[on] and 2006????[fd]	199 94.3%	("Procter & Gamble")[on] and 2006????[fd] and (1b)[ob]
Pepsico, Inc.	120	(pepsico)[on] and 2006????[fd]	106 88.3%	(pepsico)[on] and 2006????[fd] and (1b)[ob]
The Dannon Company	58	("dannon company")[on] and 2006????[fd]	46 79.3%	("dannon company")[on] and 2006????[fd] and (1b)[ob]
Mattel, Inc.	780	("mattel inc")[on] and 2006????[fd]	778 99.7%	("mattel inc")[on] and 2006????[fd] and (1b)[ob]
Hasbro, Inc.	113	(hasbro)[on] and 2006????[fd]	99 87.6%	(hasbro)[on] and 2006????[fd] and (1b)[ob]
Viacom International Inc.	260	(viacom)[on] and 2006????[fd]	232 89.2%	(viacom)[on] and 2006????[fd] and (1b)[ob]
Total	2442		2255
Percentage			92.3%

Technorati Tags: trademark, trademark registration, intent to use, use in commerce, trademark search, land grab, trademark application, statistics, search