Today we're talking about the Purple wonder himself, Prince. As we all know, this legend understood the importance of protecting his intellectual property and was no stranger to defending his rights through legal action when necessary. Remember the time he sued 22 Facebook users for linking to bootleg copies of music. How about the time he changed his name to a symbol as a result of contract dispute with his record label. Causing fans to refer to him as the artist formally known as Prince until the matter was resolved years later. Bottom line, he has had rights and he knew how to enforce them. Which is really important when you are creating your own portfolios. It doesn't matter how many trademarks or copyrights you register if you don't take the extra step to monitor and enforce your rights. You will lose what ever rights that are granted to you through registration if you fail to keep people of your mark or off your work.
Prince's propensity to protect his brand did not stop at his death. On October 15 of this year, his estate filed a trademark application for a unique shade of purple that was created specifically for him when he was using the symbol rather than his name. The color is Love Symbol #2 and was created by Pantone in 1993 for him. This story was shared to me on Instagram by the financial rebel. In the comments, some people were outraged by this moved. I'm pretty sure this is because they don't really understand what this registration means for their use of the color purple. So let's talk about it.
Today's top three takeaways are:
1. If you don't protect your mark you will lose it
2. obtaining a registered trademark for those aspects that make you standout in the market is good for business
3. Prince's registration of the unique shade of purple that was created specifically for him will not prevent us from using the color purple in our normal personal lives
