Your Trademark and success
Trademarks - to give or not to give
Recently worked with a client and we started a debate (that is still ongoing) about how to make your start-up grow and the value of its trademarks.
Some background - the company is a start-up, like TRULY a start-up, two guys in a garage. They do have products that are bringing in revenue, so, a successful startup. Now to the point - they have a technology that they license. They have given this technology a trademarked name. That name is not well known on the street (if at all), but, is known in the media as well as with all their partners (only two partners, but, better then none).
Next point - they want their partners to be succesful, so, one of the partners started to use the trademarked name of my client.
My client did not think that this was a bad thing - it would build their brand as well as insure the success of their partner.
I disagree'd, because:
- It is my clients trademark, not their customers
- It is my clients brand, not their customers
and, because, if my clients customer goes under, has to do a recall, has a virus, catched on fire, or whatever, it is my clients trademark that will lose all credibility, not their customers (of course, if money or death or liability issues are involved, the clients customer will be hurt).
Don't be so hasty to "share" your trademarks. The odds of it hurting more then helping are about 50/50, but, are you willing to take that risk?