by admin | Jul 6, 2012 | Blog, Content, Design
Bakery can continue to use “Granola”
On 8 June 2012, Justice Jagot of the Federal Court of Australia held that Australian Health and Nutrition Association Limited, trading as Sanitarium Health Food Company (Sanitarium), could not enforce its trade mark registration rights over the word “GRANOLA” against Irrewarra Estate Pty Ltd, owner of Irrewarra Sourdough Bakery.
This case demonstrates the importance of ensuring that a registered trade mark does not become generic over time. This is where advertising and branding agencies can play an important role as the way a brand is marketed has a big impact on whether a mark can remain protected.
What happened in the case
Since 1921, Sanitarium has been the owner of the Australian registered trade mark “GRANOLA”. In August 2010, Sanitarium initiated legal proceedings against Irrewarra Sourdough Bakery for infringing its registered trade mark for the word “GRANOLA” (covering “preparations made from cereals”) after the bakery sold packets of toasted nut, seed and oat mix labelled “ALL NATURAL HANDMADE GRANOLA”.
The bakery also owns its own trade mark, pictured below in relation to breads and baked goods:
![](http://www.qubepartners.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/image004.jpg)
Sanitarium argued that Irrewarra had infringed its “GRANOLA” registered trade mark by using it in that way.
While Sanitarium conceded that the word “GRANOLA” has been understood in the US to denote a crunchy toasted cereal and was in common use there, it argued that in Australia it has a more “boutique” meaning associated exclusively with Sanitarium-branded breakfast products.
In response to this, the bakery argued that the word “GRANOLA” merely describes the contents of the product and pointed to a list of Australian dictionary entries for the word “GRANOLA” to support its case that the word is now common.
The court’s findings
The judge took the view that the words used by the bakery: “ALL NATURAL HANDMADE GRANOLA” refer to a product consisting of grains, fruits and nuts, which may be baked or toasted into large clusters. She observed that since 2004 the word “GRANOLA” started appearing in Australian dictionaries and has “percolated” into the “consciousness of Australians”.
Thus, the bakery was using “GRANOLA” in a descriptive sense rather than as a trade mark (that is, to indicate the origin of the good) and therefore, Sanitarium could not establish trade mark infringement.
Lessons
An important lesson that flows from the decision is that brand owners should take steps to prevent their brands from becoming generic. This means that while an invented word may be validly registered as a trade mark at the outset (as Sanitarium did with its “GRANOLA” mark, from 1921), its ability to stop other traders from using the brand could be limited if the word becomes used in common language.
A good tip is to use trade marks as adjectives rather than nouns.
To do this have the common descriptive name (ie the noun) of the product or service follow the mark at least the first time that the mark appears in your marketing material.
Tip 1:
Correct: Buy CADBURY chocolate.
Incorrect: Buy CADBURY.
Correct: Use SAVLON cream.
Incorrect: Use SAVLON.
Tip 2:
If you take the trade mark out of the sentence and it still makes sense – that will be good trade mark use.
The Rollerblades example
For example it is well known that the Italian-based company, Nordica S.p.A. actively enforced its “ROLLERBLADE” trade mark rights against various retailers around Australia when they used the word “rollerblades”. As a result, the trade mark is still registered (Trade Mark Number: 480323) and traders now use other words such as “inline skates” instead.
In some situations, a trade mark that has over time, become generic, could even be removed from the Register.
Disclaimer – The contents of this article do not replace tailored legal advice
*Sharon Givoni is an intellectual property lawyer with 16 years and has clients across all industries.
by admin | Apr 27, 2012 | Blog, Design, Promotion
A recipe for depressing consumers and marketers alike! Here they are laid out on my kitchen counter:
![](http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m34ho4KxwE1qfo3gb.jpg)
The quality of “stuffing” in our letter boxes certainly justifies this paper waste being called Junk Mail! Here’s a sample from just one day, which is typical of type and quality SME (small medium enterprise) Junk Mail versus big retailer catalogs.
These are 2 distribution companies:
1. Letterbox Deals which comes in a brochure format – this one had around 30 pages and 27 Advertisers
2. Business Link, which is Local Advertising company which sells the space, prints and then distributes into mailbox – they had 21 advertisers all as loose leaf or brochures in different sizes and formats.
The overall standard of these and all other junk mail I have ever received is pathetic.
Most rules of design and copywritng have been broken / ignored (fact is the owners of these brands just don’t know what they don’t know).
Letterbox Deals – 8 out of 27 were just reasonable, or at least acceptable.
Business Link – 1 out of 21 was good (and it was a Franchise – Step Into Life), 1 was ok, the rest a perfect example of what not to do when it comes to Copywriting and Design.
The ratio of terrible to reasonable is the same in your local newspaper, Manufacturer’s Monthly and most other trade mags.
Interestingly the standard in North America (USA and Canada) is much higher, due to the more competitive nature of their markets.
The only reason most of these businesses are still alive is because their competition is just as bad and consumers have effectively no choice!
And here’s the bit that makes me happy – business owners who get this will prosper with the proper content strategy: by developing a brand, communicating clearly, effectively and utilizing basic communication principles.
by admin | Feb 20, 2012 | Blog, Content, Design, Promotion
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We are passionate, energetic and committed Communication specialists. Our area of expertise is in Talent Placement, Media Training, Public Relations and Crisis Management.
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by admin | Feb 20, 2012 | Blog, LinkedIn, LinkedIn Training, Promotion, Strategy
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There are not many certainties in the world today, but here are 3 we can examine and show you how LinkedIn can assist you in benefitting from each:
1. The world has changed and the change of pace will keep accelerating.
Whether there will be another financial crisis or not and how big it will be is not something any of us can predict or control, but jobs will keep being lost; outsourcing, offshoring, resources will keep flowing to where the return on investment is the greatest. Whether it is job vacancies or business opportunities you will have to work harder and smarter to stand out and differentiate yourself from a greater number of competitors all trying to get a smaller share of the pie.
So, who can you rely on when times get tough?
You! And the equity in you; your personal brand. LinkedIn is the perfect personal branding and publicity tool.
LinkedIn, is a way that you can communicate to the world
- What you know, your experience and expertise, knowledge and the benefits you can deliver to your clients and manage and leverage
- Who you know, your trusted network, the people that think you are good
There’s no point debating which of the two is more important, you need a good dose of both for success.
2. Online Marketing in general and Social Media Marketing specifically, together with the irreversible swing towards inbound marketing means that if your online marketing assets are not optimised and helping you and your business ‘get found’ then you will rapidly be left behind.
When it comes to B2B and professional services, LinkedIn provides the ultimate platform to combine all of your marketing assets, once they have been optimised – no point driving visitors to a leaky boat:
- Your LinkedIn Profile itself is a great way to be found by prospects and stay top of mind in front of your customers
- Your Website
- Your Blog
- Your YouTube Channel
- Your Slideshare
3. Everybody in business relies on it, everybody wants it, everybody knows it is the most effective way of attracting customers, yet when it comes to the holy grail of generating referrals very few businesses / salespeople have a have a plan and a process to turn their connections into contracts!
LinkedIn is the perfect Sales Tool for B2B and professional services marketers that allows you to leverage your networks. LinkedIn provides the perfect and simple platform for every step of a typical Referral Process:
- Identifying Referrers / Influencers in your Network
- Providing customers with a WOW experience (LinkedIn won’t help you there – you need to be great at what you do or deliver exceptional value through your products and services!)
- Stay Top of Mind through regular communication that adds value to your customers and prospects
- Educate your network how to refer to you
- Ask for targeted Referrals and Introductions, rather than ‘asking for referrals blindly’
- Recognise and Reward those that refer to you!
Don’t get left out, get LinkedIn.
To learn about our LinkedIn courses check this out.
For a Free and No Obligation Discussion about your specific needs contact us today.
by admin | Feb 14, 2012 | Blog, Design
Seeing is Achieving
InsightGIS is an IT company that specialises in geographic information systems (GIS) and location intelligence. Our services add value to your business and information systems by merging them with locational information. You gain the benefits of visualising your data and easily accessing your information.
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Seeing is Achieving
InsightGIS is an IT company that specialises in geographic information systems (GIS) and location intelligence.Our services add value to your business and information systems by merging them with locational information. You gain the benefits of visualising your data and easily accessing your information.
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