DILtool: A New Tool for Detecting Diluted Brands
Trademark law prohibits the use of a mark that is identical or similar to prior trademarks in the class or classes in question. There is, however, one exception: “diluted” marks. These are words that have been used by so many marks that the law makers finally decided that they no longer belong to anyone.
What is the benefit? Simply to be able to turn to names that, while not very differentiating, are not liable to draw future lawsuits in industries with high trademark saturation.
Example: A famous American phone brand is looking for a name for its new line of cell phones. Constraint: The name must be an English word or group of words. Problem: 70% of the words in the English dictionary are unavailable in the telecom class (CL38) in the U.S. The solution: Look towards overused names, the ones that are considered “diluted”.
Quensis’new tool works by applying a series of statistical models to marks registered in one or several classes, in one or several countries. DILtool helps us identify and classify the words most often used in trademarks so we can find possible solutions. End of problem!
