Conference 7.286::digital

DEC STD 197 says:

             The  Corporate  Identification  Manual (EJ-N0710-18) specifies
             the proper usage of the Digital logo and should be referenced.
             It  outlines  the  basic guidelines that must be adhered to in
             order to protect the logo as a unique corporate symbol. Misuse
             of the logo can mean forfeiture of rights under that logo.

I don't have a copy of the CIM handy, but I think it probably does not require
the TM on things that are not "publications".  For example, I'm sitting here
in front of my workstation which has, on various items, five renditions of
the Digital logo and none of them have the TM.  The CIM makes interesting
reading, by the way.  Most DEC site libraries have a copy.

				Steve

Of course, that doesn't explain why a piece of paper from
payroll to me is NOT a publication, but a packet of bits
from me to another engineer IS a publication.

Trademark lawyers?  Ppptttthhhh!

Re: .2

Well, actually it isn't.   There does seem to be a lot of confusion about
use of the logo, mainly because few bother to find out what the rules are.
I walked down to the ZKO library and looked at the Corporate Identity Manual
to see what it had to say, and have excerpted parts below. (Disclaimer: 
this was the July 1988 edition; I don't know if there have been revisions
to this section since then.)


Trademark

The Digital logo is one of the primary trademarks of Digital Equipment
Corporation, and its use is particularly carefully prescribed.  The logo is
in most countries a registered trademark of the Corporation.  When using the
logo in any form, it must always be used with the TM symbol.

The TM is not required when the logo is used in literature, provided the
disclaimer "The Digital logo is a trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation,"
appears in the credit page of the document.  The TM is also not required where
the relative size of the logo is such that the TM symbol would be unreadable.

The Digital logo, as the sole logo identifier of the Corporation, may only
be used in connection with the business and products of Digital Equipment
Corporation.  Its use on *unofficial* articles of clothing, novelty items,
and the like, is not permitted.  For company sanctioned events such as
recreational teams sponsored by Employee Activities, etc., the use of the
logo is permitted but great care should be taken that it is used properly.
Questions concerning the use of the Digital logo for such purposes should be
addressed to the Corporate Identity and Design group.

...

Correct Creation of a Digital Logo Using Word Processing

Although there are many ways to create a facsimile of the DIGITAL Logo
using word processing programs, the following standard should be the only
one employed to insure consistency throughout the company.

Please note use of a TM is not necessary on items of stationery such as
internal memos.  All other uses of the logo require a TM symbol.


	+---------------------------+ TM
	|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
	| d | i | g | i | t | a | l |
	|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
	+---------------------------+

[Curiously, DEC-STD-197 gives a slightly different rendition of the logo for
such purposes!]

The CIM then goes on to give examples of improper usage of the logo.  One
which I see frequently violated is "Do not use the logo as part of a headline
or a sentence."  For example, I've seen some systems which, when you SET
HOST to them, display:

		For <digital-logo> Internal Use Only!

The essence of this rule is that the logo is NOT a substitute for the name
of the company in text.

Another improper usage I have seen is internal memos which attempt to render
the blocks in "3-D".

From all this, I conclude that the TM is not required on internal memos.
I suspect it should appear somewhere on the paystub, but perhaps not.  I
tried to call the Corporate Identity department, but got a message that the
person in charge is on vacation.

					Steve

I'm not going to go and check myself, but this information is *somewhere*
in LOOKUP::COMPANY_IDENTITY

	Joe

I did look at COMPANY_IDENTITY; one of the entries is an update to the
Corporate Identity Manual which expands on the text regarding the DIGITAL
logo.  It repeats the statement that the TM is not needed on "items of
stationery such as internal memos", and I think that would also apply to
the paystubs, but I will put an inquiry into Peter Phillips about it.

However, the new text is much more insistent about proper use of the logo
itself by employees:

  The DIGITAL Logo is used as a graphic element; it is never used within
  a sentence.  When referring to the company within text, use our trade
  name, "Digital," in upper-lower case.  Using "DIGITAL" in all caps
  signifies its use as a trademark, as in "DIGITAL Logo."  The term
  "DEC" should be used as a trademark for our products and as a service
  mark for our services, but not in reference to the company itself.

  The following is a reference to the THERMOS case, in which a Federal
  Court declared it a generic term rather than still a trademark:

  "Internal misuse of a trademark by employees of the company owning it
  has been a factor in a Federal Court's declaring that a one-time
  trademark has lost its trademark significance altogether.  The Court
  found that internal misuse of the trademark THERMOS by employees of
  its owner, King-Seeley, was so widespread that it was additional proof
  that the mark had become a generic term rather than remaining a
  trademark.  In other words, if the employees of the company did not
  even use the trademark correctly, that is convincing proof that it
  isn't a trademark that the courts should protect."

  Given the above, employees should always use the DIGITAL Logo and all
  of our trademarks correctly in both internal and external documents.
  A periodically updated list of trademarks can be found in our
  Corporate Videotex Library under "ADMINISTRATION" (or type "VTX LAW"
  at DCL).

The word from Peter Phillips, manager of the Corporate Identity group, is
that indeed, the paystubs are considered stationery and exempt from the TM
requirement.

				Steve

    re: .5 "misuse" of the word "Thermos"
    
    Words like thermos and aspirin certainly do go from trademark to common
    or generic names.  In each case a specific product name came to mean
    the whole class of similar products. This brings up the commonsense
    question.  Everybody knows what "a thermos" is.  What's "a Digital" ??
    
    Wes

I would imagine that a major part of the reason King-Seeley people misused their 
trademark was the fact that they did not realize they were doing so. They
weren't going around saying "thermos" with a wink and nudging each other
knowingly. Within a company, terms become so pervasive that they are indeed
generic, but only in context. I frequently use the term cluster, not to mean
a group of stellar objects or allocated disk blocks, but to mean a group of 
VAXen running a particular protocol. If I said "cluster state transition"
at an astronomy conference, they would think I meant a supernova or something,
but here, everyone understands exactly what I mean. The problem, of course, is
that you cannot assume a given context when you use these terms in public 
documents (or documents which might be made public, which essentially means
*all* documents). So the best defense is to make people aware of the trademark
requirements and hire another 100 lawyers per 10 employees. What is ironic is
that when your product becomes so successful, when you as a company are so 
closely identified with it, that society accepts your trademark into the lexicon
to describe the generic object, you risk adbicating that trademark. I never knew
THERMOS was a trademark, I thought it referred to any vacuum-insulated bottle.

    
    That brings back something I haven't heard for a few years: 
    "digital? You make watches, right?"
    
    Isn't every computer a digital computer?  But some V*Xes are
    vacuum cleaners.  Don't worry about trademarks, - just do it; their
    way right away.  The way things are going, you won't be able
    utter a sentence without infringing a trademark soon.  When are
    they gonna stop & smell the pitta?
    
    "Misuse" of a trademark can be as simple as using it as a part of
    speech in writing - as I would have done if I had extended the VAX
    trademark into a plural by adding `es', or "I'll D*Cmail you a copy".
    But you'll find this very same error in countless thousands of Digital
    documents, so it would be hard to deny.  The difference is whether a corporation makes some attempts
    do defend the trademark, or whether they'll happily prefer the benefits
    of being a household name.  Digital makes strong attempts to defend
    its' trademarks, whereas the vacuum flask company probably did not.
    
    The point in focusing on the "graphic" format is to identify the common
    word "digital" in a special context that has unique meaning. No-one's
    going to produce a terminal with our logo on it, (I hope!) but it might be
    misused on supplies and patterned inferior spare parts to fool
    customers. (A lot of patterned car spares are sold in ripped-off
    packaging to look like OEM.) 
    
    There's another side to this - we might set up shop in a non-US market
    where, by chance, one of our names is already a registered trademark. 
    The local law governing trademarks may also differ from what US law
    says. (TM may need to be changed to (MR).  As a lot of our information
    ends up in other countries, it's VERY important that every
    published communication is written in accordance with corp guidelines.
    
    One very good consolidated reference is the IDC Corporate Documentation
    Handbook, which considers CIM, Legal and International requirements.
    
    regards,
    
    Colin
    
    
                                  

>================================================================================
>Note 2375.7             Trademark symbol on Digital logo                  7 of 9
>KALI::PLOUFF "Lifestyles of the unrich and anonymous" 8 lines   1-MAR-1993 11:56
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>    
>    question.  Everybody knows what "a thermos" is.  What's "a Digital" ??

Wes, at one point, "UNIVAC" was synonymous with "COMPUTER."  At a later point,
"IBM" had the same connotation.  In my college days, people woudn't complain
that the computer was down, the "IBM" was.  I would hope that, someday,
"Digital" would mean the sme thing.  Of course, "DECs" never go down :-)

BobW

        Re: .10
        
> at one point, "UNIVAC" was synonymous with "COMPUTER."  At a later point,
> "IBM" had the same connotation.
        
        And during the transition, I've been told, people would
        call IBM and say they wanted to purchase `a UNIVAC'.
        
        					B.J.

There's a sign in the window of Kinko's Copies across from Boston College
that says "We Rent IBM's".

Here's how I view the situation.  No, it's not likely that competitors will
start putting the DIGITAL logo on their own products.  But I've already seen
many ads using our logo in inappropriate ways (such as part of a sentence.)
If Digital ever attempts to get companies to stop misusing our logo, or to
try to assert the right to control its use, and if a court finds that our
own employees misuse the logo in the same way, we'd possibly lose the case.
(Ideally, we'd already be sending letters to these companies - I don't know
if we do.)

Why is it so hard for people to just "do the right thing"?  Or is appearing
cute and clever more important than protecting one of our employer's most
important assets?

				Steve

P.S.  I see people today say "a VHS" when they mean "a VCR".  Indeed, in
the early days of home VCRs, "Betamax" was used as a generic term for VCR.

>If Digital ever attempts to get companies to stop misusing our logo, or to
>try to assert the right to control its use, and if a court finds that our
>own employees misuse the logo in the same way, we'd possibly lose the case.

Aren't there any number of promotional things (coffee mugs, tee shirts, etc)
that misuse it already?  I assume they do not count as 'publications'.

>Why is it so hard for people to just "do the right thing"?  

Not everyone may know what the 'right' thing is. I agree they should find out.

re Note 2375.13 by QUARK::LIONEL:

> Why is it so hard for people to just "do the right thing"?  Or is appearing
> cute and clever more important than protecting one of our employer's most
> important assets?
  
        Few people I know look to lawyers for reliable advice on "the
        right thing".

        Bob

Re: .15

I suppose that's why so many people end up in trouble (and getting others
in trouble as well.)  It's the corporation's lawyers' job to protect the
corporation's interest, and as employees of the corporation, we have an
obligation to follow their advice.   Missteps by employees have cost many
corporations hundreds of millions of dollars.  Do you really want to take
that risk, personally?

				Steve

re Note 2375.16 by QUARK::LIONEL:

> Missteps by employees have cost many
> corporations hundreds of millions of dollars.  Do you really want to take
> that risk, personally?
  
        No -- but almost none of the big missteps would have been
        avoided by seeking the corporation's lawyers' advice!  :-}

        To the point:  when you look at Digital's big money-losing
        mistakes, how many had to do with mis-handling of trademarks?

        Bob

> Why is it so hard for people to just "do the right thing"?  Or is appearing
> cute and clever more important than protecting one of our employer's most
> important assets?
    
    I suspect that those of us being "cute" about it is as a result of
    bitter experience.  You neglected to mention in your pointer to the
    standards that Corp hasn't seen fit to update std 197 since 1987 (the
    current update has been "happening" for a while.) There is also a
    trademark usage handbook which was last updated in 1988.
    
    Try phoning corp legal one day....
    
    I could write reams on this stuff having been involved in it since
    1986.  My take is that it ain't so easy and sending around a memo
    saying "do it" wasn't going to make it easier!
    
    Regards
    
    Colin
    

Re: .18

First of all, DEC STD 197 is "Legal Requirements and Guidelines for
Digital Publications and Software", and only incidentally refers to the
DIGITAL logo.  The Corporate Identity Manual is available online in note
17 of LOOKUP::COMPANY_IDENTITY and was last updated in 1990; it's not the
sort of thing which needs frequent updating.  I am aware that DEC STD 197
DOES need updating, but that's a separate issue.

I sent mail to the Corporate Identity department and got back a response 
within an hour - sounds like pretty good turnaround to me.

I'm aware that dealing with "Corporate Legal" can be frustrating, but for
the subject we're discussing, how to display the DIGITAL logo, there is a
clear and accessible document which describes the rules.  True, many are
unaware of these rules, which in part is why I've been talking about it
here.  Ignorance is one thing, but deliberate flouting of the known rules
is quite another.   I see no excuse whatsoever for the latter.

				Steve