Michael del Castillo writes for Portfolio.com that Entrepreneur magazine is suing another magazine called CEO Entrepreneur Magazine for using the word entrepreneur.
Del Castillo writes, “From EMI’s perspective though, the company is simply doing what any entrepreneur with a good brand should want to do — protect itself.
“EMI corporate council Ron Young described the Entrepreneur brand as a ‘distinct and protectable trademark’ and said that the courts have many times supported EMI’s right to the word in certain contexts. According to Young, what brought Vaidya and CEO Entrepreneur Magazine to EMI’s attention wasn’t any uptick in search engine results, but an attempt to register the name on January 6.
“‘You can use entrepreneur all day long,’ Young said. Just don’t use it in print or online titles.
“Young told Portfolio.com that ‘entrepreneur has become a very cool and useful word.’ But back in 1978, when EMI got its trademark, it was almost exclusively a French word and often mispronounced by English users.
“Young related a hypothetical example of someone trying to trademark CEO Time Magazine, citing what he called the popular news magazine’s readily apparent rights to the Time title. Again, Young said, ‘you can talk about ‘time’ all day long,’ but it better be about watches.”
