As the economy swoons, companies are cutting back on marketing. For proof, just ask the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, where the demand to register new brand names, logotypes and taglines has taken a steep slide.
In the first four months of 2009, the number of new applications for trademark registration fell 20%.
This accelerates a downward trend that began in 2008, according to Glenn Gundersen, a nationally recognized intellectual property attorney. Gundersen leads the trademark law practice at Dechert LLP and has been reporting on trademark trends since 1992.
Gundersen sees other lessons in the numbers:
- Trademark applications have not fallen as far as they did in 2001, but this time the slump comes from many sectors of the economy, and not just from the burst of dot-com bubbles.
- The cutback in new product and business launches, ad campaigns, and package redesigns is clearly substantial, since many of those marketing initiatives would have necessitated new trademark filings.
- The drop in 2008 and 2009 applications also reflects cutbacks in corporate legal budgets, as companies become more selective about which marks merit the expense of a federal filing.
- There’s no relief for a company seeking to find a mark to convey the idea that a product or service is environmentally friendly. The continuing boom in eco-oriented marks has created a green-branding gridlock.
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