The Huntington News reported on a new startup company. “The company, EXPLORAC, gives local residents the opportunity to act as tour guides and show off their knowledge of their cities. Guides can create tours that showcase the niche experiences their city has to offer. For instance, tourists using EXPLORAC in Boston can personalize their tours to focus on the city’s architecture and photography, or put a local spin on the Museum of Fine Arts.”
The new startup spans three cities and according to the article is growing. “I really see this going somewhere … this is my baby,”Lucrezia Seneso, founder, said. In a matter of weeks, Explorac’s social media accounts had 1,000 followers.
Do you think Explorac did the right thing and searched the name before launching their service? Click HERE to watch the video fo BOB searching the EXPLORAC mark for “tour services.” While there is no identical mark registered with the USPTO, and there appears to be a crowded field for marks using EXPLORE, EXPLORATION, or a variation of these terms, there is one variation EXPLORICA also for tour services that may be a problem for the young startup company.
This is a good example of how yellow search results still need to be reviewed for problematic marks. BOB makes this review process easy with its display that contains all the information you need to make an informed decision about a proposed mark.
As we discussed before, the cost to rebrand a company on the cheap side is still a few thousand dollars. But more important than having to design a new name and marketing materials is the lost opportunities and time. Opportunities like getting your store hold by the Huffington Post do not happen every day. Likewise, the effort to re-educate consumers about your company consumes time that could be spent in other places.
Great case study. The problem is, however, that most brand owners without proper understanding of how trademark law works would not be able to meaningfully interpret the results of the search. You KNEW that out of all displayed hits, EXPLORICA was the one likely to be found confusingly similar with EXPLORAC. But there are just too many people out there who think that misspelling someone else’s brand is a safe way to avoid paying the price for trademark infringement. How many of them do you think will be able to properly use trademark search data, no matter how accurate?
Andrei Mincov
Founder and CEO of Trademark Factory®
Thanks for the comment. Anyone can learn the signs to look for when reviewing trademark search results. BOB’s Blog is full of tips that novice to expert trademark searchers can learn from to find problematic marks and save themselves or their clients from unnecessary costs.