Trademark Law and Stretcho
Through one of my mentors I got connected with an attorney by the name of Jay Rand, a partner of a law firm called SorinRand LLP (he is pictured with me above) and met him at his office. Mr. Rand is a well-known attorney in New York City for startups and emerging companies.
The purpose of this educational meeting was to learn about trademarks. As I understood from this meeting, “a trademark is a word, logo, or design that identifies and distinguishes the source of the product or service of one party from those of others.” Mr. Rand was very helpful and gave many examples and shared many stories of trademark issues. One suggestion he said was to put “TM” for trademark on the box packaging and even the website (which I will do for the prototype boxes in the future) even before applying for actual trademark registration.
After this meeting, I thought about how Stretcho is unique and differentiating from any other product in the market, and here’s my initial list.
- Stretcho’s name, logo, and “look-and-feel” of the answer squares printed on the exercise mats of the product are unique.
- Stretcho’s “answer squares” design and educational information printed on the flashcards and game rules are unique.
- Stretcho’s purpose is to be an educational game, designed for elementary school children.
- Stretcho comes in multiple editions with different educational subject matter.
I learned from Mr. Rand that the best place to start to look for trademark information when you are thinking of a name is the “United States Patent and Trademark Office.” Here the link.
In keeping with the law theme of this blog post, I figured I’d also share a photo on what a policeman thought of Stretcho when I left SorinRand on my way to visit Toys “R” Us. See below. : )
