Entrepreneur: Entrepreneur Magazine
by Miki Saxon
What better way to win the hearts and eyeballs of your target market than by suing them?
Talk about lousy customer service.
But that’s the approach taken by Entrepreneur Media Inc. (EMI), publishers of Entrepreneur magazine and associated properties, such as entrepreneur.com.
The original founder trademarked “entrepreneur,” which seems contrary to the concept of “distinctiveness” (Patent Office info), but what do I know?
Policing the use of ‘entrepreneur’ are the 2,000 lawyers employed by Latham & Watkins who work out of 31 offices around the world.
We’re not talking just about letters; they go after small biz in court and win big judgments.
I have a joint venture with Bun in a Can called Watch Startup Café where we post videos of entrepreneurs talking about their company and the passion that drove them to do it.
We almost named it “Meet the Entrepreneurs;” lucky for us we didn’t.
I wonder if I should expect a cease and desist letter for this weekly feature.
There has been much talk about the need to update the US Patent and Trademark Office and how tough it is to get protection for new services, business processes, etc.
It’s probably simplistic of me, but I think the Patent Office should clean up its old messes, too.
One thing that might help is if instead of protesting in comment sections those who move in the entrepreneurial world canceled their subscriptions.
That is what I’m doing.
This article first published as Entrepreneur Magazine on Technorati.
Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dpstyles/5202530836/
