SAVE YOUR BRAND FROM THE DEATH PENALTY: AVOID THE MAJOR MISTAKES THAT CAN KILL YOUR MOST VALUABLE ASSET

Brands are among the most visible aspects of American society, often worth millions and even billions of dollars. Yet due to ignorance, advertisers, marketing professionals, executives, and entrepreneurs consistently and unknowingly work to destroy the very brands they seek to promote. Could you be destroying your employers or clients brands? In PROTECTING THE BRAND: A Concise Guide to Promoting, Maintaining, and Protecting a Company's Most Valuable Asset (Barricade Books, December 2003), attorney Talcott J. Franklin explodes the largest and most destructive myths surrounding advertising and branding, and offers invaluable information on how to avoid the major brand-killers.

In PROTECTING THE BRAND: A Concise Guide to Promoting, Maintaining, and Protecting A Companys Most Valuable Asset (Barricade Books, December 2003, $19.95), Dallas attorney Talcott J. Franklin explains trademark law in a simple and easy-to-understand manner while illustrating how advertisers, marketing professionals, executives, and entrepreneurs consistently and unknowingly work to destroy the very brands they seek to promote.

Brand-name products represent the largest single sector of the U.S. economy, yet there is no simple format in existence to educate the public about the rules of trademark law. In fact, many lawyers cant even distinguish between the familiar © and ® markings. To this end, PROTECTING THE BRAND makes available, for the first time, a clear and intelligible list of the legal terminology surrounding brands, as well as a simple primer of trademark rules. Each point is illustrated by a relevant court case ruling.

Essential for trade professionals, lawyers, and lay readers alike, PROTECTING THE BRAND offers invaluable information on how to protect and promote ones brand. Agrees Publishers Weekly: This short, practical guide to the rules of trademark law provides clear definitions of important terms, excellent examples of influential court decisions regarding uses and abuses of trademarks and useful tips on how a company can defend and keep a trademark." His examples are entertaining, often humorous, and involve some of the worlds most valuable brands.

For instance, Tal Franklin explains how some of the worlds largest and most sophisticated companies, such as AOL, Bayer, Duncan, DuPont, and King-Seeley, lost some of the worlds most valuable brands due to their failure to follow a set of simple and long-established rules, and how some of these companies are doomed to repeat history by failing to learn from their mistakes. He describes how small and obscure companies could have made a fortune licensing the brands they made famous, but through ignorance of the law blew their opportunities, and remained unknown and unprofitable.

He also puts into context some of the more publicized trademark suits of our day, such as Fox News v. Al Franken and Victoria's Secret v. Victor's Little Secret.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Talcott J. Franklin is a magna cum laude graduate of Washington & Lee University School of Law, where he served as Editor in Chief of the Washington & Lee Law Review, and was selected to Order of the Coif. He has significant experience as a trial lawyer, and frequently serves as a speaker at educational seminars for attorneys, business people, and students. He is a member of the State Bars of Texas, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

Tal is an authority on trademark law and branding, having formerly served as Intellectual Property Counsel with American Airlines, Inc. He is currently in private practice with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP in Dallas, Texas. His practice experience includes intellectual property , commercial, securities, consumer fraud, antitrust and international dispute resolution matters.

For additional information, a review copy, or to arrange an interview, please contact Jennifer Itskevich, Publicity Director for Barricade Books, at 201.944.7600.