Ci Sense Blog

Ten Years of Apple Trademark Filings

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This reporting widget displays the prominence of sundry terms in Apple’s trademark application filings for the past ten years.

To create this widget, we parsed ten years worth of Apple’s trademark filings. We grabbed the descriptions for each trademark, removed the stop words and produced this tag cloud. The technical term in the trademark filing is actually ‘goods and services’, but essentially it’s a description of the trademark’s intent.

Drag the slider from left to right to see how the emphasis changes.

A few observations:

• Charming 90s terms like ‘CD-rom’ and ‘multimedia’ disappear immediately.
• ‘Audio’ and ‘video’ starts tiny, and grow big over time.
• ‘Handheld’ comes out of nowhere in 2005. Likewise, ‘mobile’ is huge by 2007.

Of course, as Apple fans know, they can be rather cagey when filing their trademarks. In 2006, they alledgedly filed a trademark for iPhone in Trinidad and Tobago using a front company called Ocean Telecom Services. And, of course, they like to file trademarks on the opening of MacWorld. Very cheeky.

This is just one of the many kinds of reports we can create at CI Sense. You may want to check out our free Trademark Explorer, which enables you to complete comprehensive trademark searches to automated watch lists, detailed reports, historical filings and portfolio analysis

Photo by Terry Johnston.

3 Ways to Smell Your Competition a Mile Away

How do you know that your competition is planning to launch a new product?

Always be on the lookout for the Big Three: Trademark, Domain Name & Slogan. The first indication would, of course, be that they have filed a new trademark. But if you find not only a new trademark, but also a new domain name (for instance, the mark itself) registered as well, there is a good chance something new (e.g. a new direction) is in the works often in the form of a microsite. And if you find another trademark - but this one is in the form of a slogan, it’s quite obvious a new marketing push is underway.

For instance, last June Procter & Gamble, among other marks, filed:

• “Clinical Strength”
• “Because You’re Hot”
• “Secret, Because You’re Hot”

On the same day, the domain name becauseyourehot.com was also registered. All three were for “Goods” described as “Antiperspirants, body sprays etc…” That domain is now the website for Secret’s new “teen focussed” deodorant, Sparkle Body Spray, “an extension of the Secret Sparkle line of teen deodorant”.

It’s amazing what you can sniff out when you follow the scent.

What Not to Make

Most of the time it’s important to know what your competitors are doing, so you can stay ahead of the game, and possibly be inspired.

But sometimes it’s just as critical to see what they are coming up with - so you can make sure too keep as far away from the concept as possible.

Some of my favorite outrageous (and entirely unappetizing creations) include:

• Dooey-Gooey cookies. It’s probably not as bad as it sounds, but still…
• Slime Balls and Gel Tubes. Get ready to eat snacks from a tube!
• Pur Flavor. Having flavored water come out your tap is simply wrong.
• Batter Blaster. If you don’t have the 3 minutes it takes to mix pancake batter yourself, you’re right: you clearly have more important things to be concerned about than breakfast.

Have you heard of any strange products? What odd items are you happy you didn’t think of?

Take Steps to Get to Know Which New Players Mean Business

It’s always interesting to track new trademark filings in your industry. To get an extra edge, try finding companies who’ve filed for the first time. By keeping an eye on recent trademark filings you can be the first to know about the new kid on the block.

Now, take this a step further. Gather all the trademark data you’ve collected over time (say six months) and see where those companies are at in terms of bringing their products to market. Have they done anything with their trademarks? What strategies have they used? Have they been successful? Voila, you’ve got a useful competitor tracking system.

What’s Happening Here?

There’s a trademark party going on and you’re invited.

Well, it’s more like a gathering than a party. CI Sense knows trademarks don’t have a reputation for being exciting, but we’d like to show you that they can indeed be riveting.

CI Sense is a new trademark search service. But, unlike other services, we won’t merely alert you to new trademark filings. We’re doing something smarter. We present and analyze data in a clear way so that you can keep an eye on your competitors, find new competitors, identify emerging industry trends, etc.

From a comprehensive trademark search to automated watch lists, detailed reports, historical filings and portfolio analysis, CI Sense is your crystal ball into new brands and products headed for the market. Trademarks can provide a picture of what’s happening in your industry and even make it easier to concoct new product idea. Competitive intelligence made clear.

These are some examples of stories we’ll be covering on our blog:

How to incorporate trademark intel from CI Sense into an overall competitive intelligence strategy, why categorization is important for CI, solid overviews of key trademark topics, fun posts about strange trademarks, informative pieces about the world of trademarks, as well as monthly posts spotlighting the top five creative trademark filings that month.

We won’t be covering legal issues around trademarks, like conflicting marks, opposition cases, etc. For a legal lens on trademarks, check out The Trademark Blog or Likelihood of Confusion.

Now back to the second part of our introduction – we don’t want to do all the talking – we know how dull that can be at any party. We’re sincere about your place in this conversation: while we will be providing our thoughts about the world of trademarks, we’d love to hear from you and what you think about these posts. Are you learning anything new about competitive intelligence? What frustrates and excites you?

We are looking forward to some great discussions!