Managing the Trademark Asset Lifecycle 2015

On October 29, I had the honor of joining the speaking faculty at this inaugural WTR event held in New York. The program was top notch. As advertised, the panels throughout the course of the day covered the spectrum of issues related to trademarks that brand owners manage—from creation and ownership to protection and enforcement of marks—speakers also discussed valuation, collateralization, franchising and licensing. The panels included experts (including in-house counsel, outside counsel and also those who support these efforts from relevant industry businesses) who outlined the issues and challenges that arise in these different areas and talked about strategies for navigating the input. The day was book-ended with insightful remarks from industry leaders—starting with a panel that included INTA CEO Etienne Sanz de Acedo, who emphasized that the efforts to raise awareness on the importance of trademarks and to maximize their value must include a broader audience of marketing and business professionals, and ending with remarks from Lucinda Longcroft, Head of the NY office of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), who commented on the growing nexus between innovation and brand protection throughout the world and who provided some interesting statistics on the WIPO membership and resources and the Madrid Protocol system (now 112 countries and over 21,420,000 records).