As a follow-up to my post on Asian domain name scams, I received an email from Christopher Hofman Laursen.

He sent me a link to his post on the same topic where he provides an extensive list of Chinese domain name scammers with names and emails.

Certainly worth checking out!

Last week, I have delivered a seminar on trademarks through Vancouver Business Network.

Among other things, I explained that business owners can file their own trademark applications in Canada because there is no mandatory rule that would require them to use a trademark agent for that. I also said that it may not be such a great idea if you don’t know what you’re doing.

The night after the seminar, I received an email from a business owner who, about a year ago, was shopping around for a good deal to register three trademarks for his business.

Eventually, he decided to file them on his own.

Unfortunately, he now received office actions for all three of them.

One is especially troublesome, because the examiner is of the opinion that the mark is descriptive of the services in association with which it was applied for.

The problem is not with the mark itself, the problem is with the way the business owner drafted the statement of wares and services. He should have worded the statement of wares and services more broadly, so that it wouldn’t be essentially the description of the mark itself. Unfortunately, he can no longer do that, because after the application has been filed, one cannot broaden the scope of goods and services any more.

So the end result is: he saved a few thousand dollars on lawyer fees, yet he wasted a year investing his time, effort and money building a brand he can’t register as a trademark.

Was it worth it?

It is with great pride and pleasure that I can finally announce that Protecting Your Ideas and Covering Your Assets® is now a registered trademark of Mincov Law Corporation.

It was more than just a “file & wait” experience, since the Canadian Intellectual Property Office cited another trademark “Protect Your Ideas” previously registered by another firm against my application. It took some creative effort, including references to French language translation of the trademark, to overcome this objection.

First down, several more to go.

I am also excited to announce that I will be conducting a free workshop on trademarks through Vancouver Business Network on September 17, 2013 at 6PM.

The original title of the presentation “You got a brand. Now what?” was renamed to “How To Protect Your Brand With Trademarks” for greater clarity. But the idea remains the same, it’s not enough to come up with a good name, logo or tagline. As any other business asset, you need to protect your trademarks.

No entrepreneur starts a business with an idea that their business will be just like everybody else’s. How many people refer to Facebook as “Mark Zuckerberg’s website?” Successful brands transcend their owners. This is the power of a brand. And if you don’t protect it, you are not being serious about your business.

The Meetup organizers charge $5.00 at the door, but the workshop itself is free.

Please RSVP at http://www.meetup.com/the-vancouver-business-network/events/138147612/ to attend this event.

If you are an entrepreneur, you need to know when, how and why to protect your brand.

If you are in the business of brand development (designers, advertisers, marketers, printers, etc.), you will learn how to provide massive added value to your customers at no extra cost to you.

If you want clear, no B.S. answers about your trademarks, you don’t want to miss this presentation.