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08 August 2012
(THIS ARTICLE WAS POSTED BY A BIDDER(THANKS WARLOCK) AT ANOTHER FORUM AND REPOSTED HERE WITH PERMISSION)
As a patent and trademark attorney, I'm always curious how many businesses in a given industry acquire (and use) federal trademarks for their brands. A trademark is generally used to identify the source of the goods or services for the benefit of customers. A federal trademark is one that the US Patent & Trademark issues upon application by a person or business entity and is denoted as the (R) symbol [R in a circle.]
It's important for businesses to have at least their name brand registered for at least two reasons. First, a federal mark registration enables a site to generate goodwill more easily than perhaps anything else. Second, an owner of a federal mark registration can block their competitors from creating similar marks that might confuse customers as to the source of the goods/services being offered by the owner. In view of the very high number of sites that use "penny," "cent" or "bid" in their name, a federal trademark registration can further distinguish one's own site from the rest of the pack.
For customers, seeing a penny auction site own and use a federal trademark conveys an impression that the site is serious about their reputation and position in the industry. For some customers, that can an important criterion for assessing whether a site is worth their time.
So how many penny auction sites who interact on this forum have a federal trademark registration? From my count of ~100(+) sites listed as sub-forums, as advertisers, and as introductions, only 18 sites have a federal trademark registration. That's a low number. Those sites include the following:
Beezid
BidBidz
BidCactus
BidRivals
BidSauce
Bidstick.com
BidWhammy
DealDash
dibZees
GKube
HappyBidDay.com
OrangeBidz (application pending)
PennyGrab
PennyWizard
Quibids
SkoreIt!
The BidSpot
UBIDUGO
Any site interested in learning more about how to obtain a federal trademark or police others from using a mark that might be confusingly similar to their mark is encouraged to contact me. ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )
