Does Monitoring Your Competitors’ Trademark Filings Make Sense?
By: DEAN R. KARAU
December 2009
Perusing the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) electronic databases can lead to fun little nuggets of information. Some of it may be of great value to you, too.
For instance, you know that Amazon Technologies, Inc. is the owner of the KINDLE® wireless reading device. Amazon is headed toward selling 550,000 KINDLE® readers this year.
However, Amazon’s competition is growing rapidly, some of it due to issues with the KINDLE® reader.
According to some, one of the biggest problems with KINDLE® reader is the closed nature of the platform. That is, virtually everything about the device is controlled by Amazon. Given that Amazon isn’t a hardware vendor, this is can be a pretty big problem.
And, if you were an Amazon competitor, you might want to learn something about Amazon’s future plans to address its issues.
Therefore, you might find it interesting to learn that on June 30, 2009, Amazon filed an intent-to-use trademark application, U.S. Application Serial No. 77/769,510, for its mark KINDLE, for intended use with services described as “online social networking services; providing a website for the purposes of social networking; providing online computer databases and online searchable databases in the field of social networking; providing information in the field of social networking.”
The trademark application could be a signal that Amazon might be moving toward opening up its platform to third-party developers, information about which competitors certainly would want to know.
A great feature of U.S. trademark law is the intent-to-use trademark application. An intent-to-use application provides you a means by which you can “reserve” a trademark for use with future goods/services, as long as you begin using it with those goods/services within three years of when the USPTO says your mark is registrable.
However, because USPTO records are public and readily accessible, your competitors can get a sneak preview of your future plans.
Go ahead, sneak a peak at what your competitors are filing at the USPTO. But remember, what you file can be seen by others, too, so you may want to work with your attorney to be sure your trademark filings don’t tell more about your intent than they need to.
