Technology will be one of the key themes of this year’s Annual Meeting in response to a high demand for information about gTLDs, social media and trademark protection in the cloud.
Fluid trademarks, such as the ever-changing GOOGLE logo on the search engine’s homepage, have also been identified as a topic that has attracted the interest of IP practitioners in recent years, following technological advances. While fluid trademarks can be used to keep a brand’s image fresh, they can create risks including trademark dilution or cancellation.
“The management of the portfolios has changed vastly due to technology,” says Annual Meeting co-chair Joseph Ferretti, Vice President and Chief Trademark Counsel for PepsiCo/Frito-Lay. “The docketing systems and the software that’s used to manage our systems have advanced so much.”
Plain packaging, corporate social responsibility and luxury brands are also among the subjects identified by the Annual Meeting Project Team as being hot topics for this year’s event. “As consumers are becoming more socially aware, their expectation is that products are environmentally sound,” says Purvi Patel, Annual Meeting co-chair and chair of Haynes and Boone’s Trademark Practice Group. “I think a lot of companies are recognizing that there is a definite brand value to that, too.”
Patel says the team began identifying key topics to be covered in the sessions two years ago. Team members tried to strike a balance between new issues that IP practitioners would be likely to need more information about, such as gTLDs, and more traditional subjects, such as the differences between IP law in various jurisdictions.
The group identified gTLDs as a topic that would be of interest to this year’s attendees early in the planning process. However, ideas for how the new domain names would be covered during the Annual Meeting had to be refined as ICANN, the nonprofit organization that oversees the application process, released more information about how it would be managed. For more information about the programming on gTLDs, see page 8.
Keynote speaker Jerry Jones, owner, President and General Manager of the NFL team the Dallas Cowboys will be speaking in Monday morning’s Keynote Address. Patel says the committee spent much time discussing whether the keynote speaker should represent a local or international brand, given that the Annual Meeting draws members from all over the world. In the end, she says feedback from members suggested they were fascinated by the Dallas Cowboys.
“The Dallas Cowboys is an iconic brand which is closely associated with Texas and is recognized all over the world,” she says. “Throughout the planning conference, one of the questions I was most frequently asked by our members is whether the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders would be in attendance.” Find out if they will on Monday morning.
Find out more about by visiting www.tripbuilder.com/inta2013 and downloading the Annual Meeting mobile app.
