Revenue Assurance Trademarked?
Here is a surprising revelation. It turns out one company has trademarked Revenue Assurance which I guess is conclusive proof that intellectual property can be utterly daft and meaningless. Which company do you think has nabbed the phrase for itself? Judging from this press release (look at the bottom), it is IneoQuest, Massachusetts supplier of specialized products for video quality management. Who would have thought it?
Comments
This made my day!
Hmm...maybe I should register Billing Assurance(tm).
Posted by: joe | June 25, 2008 12:51 PM
Eric:
Under US federal trademark law, the TM doesn't mean anything. It only is an official, federally registered, legal trademark when the US PTO grants it, and then the symbol used is a little R inside a circle, meaning it is a "registered" trademark. The common practice is for companies to put the TM next to any words for which they have applied for a trademark or may want to. So this company's TM by Revenue Assurance is virtually meaningless, except to indicate that they think they can and may try to trademark it. Pretty cheeky of them though.
http://www.uspto.gov/main/faq/t120054.htm
Posted by: Mark Trader | June 25, 2008 01:32 PM