A particular problem with social media is that it blurs the professional and the personal, the business and the individual – there may be a clear commercial objective to all this tweeting and blogging, but it’s the authentically human voice that makes an account stand out. A business may rightly regard its social media...
Adidas likes to think of itself as synonymous with its famous logo – so much so that its founder, Adolph ‘Adi’ Dassler, referred to it as the “three-stripe company”. From early days, Adi was concerned to give his products a distinctive look. Very much ahead of his time, he designed his shoes to stand...
Even the biggest brands need to play by the rules – and they don’t come much bigger than McDonald’s. The global burger chain has thousands of trade mark registrations worldwide and spends an eye-watering amount each year maintaining and enforcing them. But in a recent dispute with Irish burger chain Supermac, McDonald’s Mc’d up...
To cynical observers such as BrandSoup, the festive season may hold few surprises – the same old songs, the same old traditions, the same old advertising campaigns. And that’s precisely why we love it so much: it’s a beacon of consistency and reliability in a fast-moving, uncertain world. So imagine our astonishment when we...
BrandSoup was flicking through the internet recently, wondering what to cover in our next blog – whether to write about Turkish celebrity chef Nusret Gökçe, who is seeking to register his trade mark gestures? Or the controversy over video game Fortnite ‘stealing’ other people’s dance moves? Imagine our joy when we found out we...
A trade mark registration gives its proprietor a measure of control over how third parties can describe their wares. In the case of an identical mark used on identical goods and services, it’s a reasonably straightforward proposition. But, as the marks and their respective goods/service begin to differ, you also need to prove an...
This week, BrandSoup has been mostly catching up on back episodes of Suits. It’s as reliable an insight into New York legal practice as it is an accurate profile of the Duchess of Sussex. But it’s fun, there are some great lines and everyone is fabulously well dressed! One recent episode showed managing partner...
A couple of years ago, BrandSoup reported on the Kylie v Kylie spat – two ladies fighting over one name. Since then, Mlles Minogue and Jenner appear to have kissed and made up, but… what’s this? It’s only Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM to some) with a very similar problem! ...
Just before Christmas, an old friend asked BrandSoup for some help with a spot of online infringement. Our friend, a town crier (yes, such things do still exist!), was having trouble with his Twitter account. He tweets as @ramsburycrier, sharing snippets from the village diary and details of upcoming local events. But late in...
We thought BrandSoup was alone in having opinions about the advisability or otherwise of government agencies getting “creative” with logos (see our recent blog – Bonfire of the Quango Logos). But following revelations of the US NSA’s acquisitive attitude to everyone’s emails and Facebook postings, this thorny topic is now global headline news. The...
