Firebrand

I realized that whenever I see a trademark symbol, I immediately glaze over the preceding text.

You know what I am talking about. It only happens when you are not engaged with the company or the information. In a body paragraph on a website there is something in Title Case with a TM at the end. Like if I was talking about Firebrand and then I had something like The Hottest Resources For The Hottest Companies (TM). You would just do a mental eye roll or shoulder shrug and say to yourself “not another cheesy marketing tag line… Oh brother.”

Here is a good example.

I see 5 trade marks on that page, which is 4 more than I think there should be. I think Minute Maid has a good brand, and to protect their promotions I know they need to use trademarks like that. But do we really need a symbol beside every instance of something to eliminate every false interpretation of the trademark? It seems antiquated.

In an age where being precieved as genuine is goal number one, our intellectual property tools are actually hurting as much as they are helping. Time for some new ones maybe?

—

By Colin Finkle. Colin Finkle is an award winning industrial designer who works with large brands everyday designing displays for FX Displays in Toronto, Canada. He is the principle designer at Firebrand Creative. He also writes for AMD’s FireUser.com blog.

Join the Firebrand family – Please Comment or Email.