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It's Me AGAIN, Margaret...
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Newsletter Addendum
Trademark Awareness
(Jeopardy®, Family Feud®, Scholastic®, et al)
April 2010
In addition to copyright laws,
TpT sellers must also be aware of trademark regulations.
Unlike copyrights, which determine rights to copy, sell, or distribute original
works of authorship, trademarks
legally distinguish one
company's product from another. A trademark can be a name, a
letter, a word, a symbol, a figure, or a mark. As is the case with a copyright,
the law grants exclusive use of a trademark to its owner.
For those who love trivia, the
symbol ®, also known as a Racol (Registered and Authorized
Company Logo), indicates a name, mark, etc. that has been officially registered,
usually with the Patent and Trademark Office. The letters ™ signify an
unregistered trademark used to promote goods (as opposed to services). Like copyrights, trademarks do not have
to be registered to be legal, but official registration offers a much broader
spectrum of legal protection than do unregistered, common law claims.
An example of a popular, registered trademark is Nike's swoosh
logo. If another company tried to
befuddle the buying public with a slightly altered version, then Nike would
have grounds for a lawsuit.
Coca-Cola not only owns exclusive rights to its name, it also trademarks
the familiar wave that flows under it.
Athletic gear and soft-drink companies, of course, are not the only
enterprises with officially registered trademark claims. Television game shows and
publishing companies are also included in this group.
Yep! Jeopardy® and Family Feud® are trademarked! Jeopardy Productions has owned the Jeopardy
trademark since April 21, 1987. Pearson
Television Operations BV officially claimed Family Feud on December 1, 1988. Both are
classified as "Educational and Entertainment Services"-pretty much what
teachers do! It's perfectly
logical that we would see the value of combining entertainment and education
and come up with classroom activities based on the "game show" idea. We break no laws in doing so. However, using the name Jeopardy® or Family
Feud® as part of our products is a trademark
infringement.
Names of publishing companies, such as
Harcourt® or Scholastic® are also trademarked. (Their category, by the way, is
"Paper Goods and Printed Material." We do that, too!) Many TpT sellers have
written and posted original supplementary material for published textbooks. It
makes sense to identify the textbook publisher in the title and/or product
description, but any mention of a trademarked name--"Supplemental
Activities for Harcourt® Trophies Book 3," for example-requires a Racol!
Don't panic if you have posted a trademarked name in a product title or
have listed items for teaching specific textbook materials without proper
trademark acknowledgment. Anyone
in this position, however, will need to add the trademark symbol
to the names of publishing companies and replace the Jeopardy® and
Family Feud® titles with new names as soon
as possible!
Since TpT product entry
dialogue boxes do not allow the inclusion of symbols, you will need to compose
your ®-addition updates on a word
document and then cut-and-paste the new material to the TpT form. I have tested this method, and it
works. The trademark symbol does
not fall apart and re-emerge as gobbledy-gook on the product page, thank
goodness!
A teacher/author's day is already ultra busy, and it
will take some schedule shuffling to open posted products and make changes.
Creating new names for the game-show products will require even more effort. With that in mind, I am offering some
ideas for new product names.
For renaming Family Feud®-based
games, how about Classroom Feud, Classroom Clash, Battling
Answers, or Squabbles? In the product description, you could state that
the activity is based on the popular game-show concept. If you use the exact show name, be sure
to include the registered trademark symbol ®. For changing the titles of Jeopardy®-type
items, think "trivia," "knowledge," or "thinking." Maybe Trivia Marathon,
Brain Games, Knowledge
Knockout, or dare I suggest it-Cogitation?
A visit to dictionary.com's
thesaurus tab can open up many more possible terms for the renaming
process. Another good word-collector's
resource, if you haven't already found it, is rhymezone.com
Here is our opportunity to create exclusive titles for our very unique "Educational
and Entertainment Services." Imagine
how yours would sound if Alex Trebek pronounced it. Steve Harvey is slated to take over as the host of Family
Feud® in September 2010.
Imagine the unusual names he would come up with.
Fortunately, Mr. Trebek and Mr. Harvey are not trademarked!
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PS. Please read my newsletter regarding copyrights HERE if you missed it on Monday.
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