TM.Biz Launches Trademark Protection Tools for Social Media

Secure trademarks on Facebook, Twitter and beyond

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Sep 15, 2010, 07:35 ET

BOSTON, Sept. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, TM.Biz (http://www.tm.biz) announces its new workflow tool to help secure trademarks and brands on social networks. TM.Biz searches, watches and reserves usernames on the Internet's top 500 social networks.

"It's time that trademark best practices incorporate social media in the traditional lifecycle of a trademark," says Thomas Barrett, President of EnCirca, the company behind TM.Biz. "TM.Biz is the first service of its kind geared towards the unique needs and workflow of the trademark professional."

TM.Biz's Availability Search service is a free search of usernames on the top 500 social networks. Users can segregate results by brand or client, save their search history and share results with their clients.

"Our clients take steps to protect their trademarks - arguably one of their most important assets," says William M. Borchard, Partner, Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman. "In social media, TM.Biz provides a great, cost-effective tool tailored to the trademark industry. The TM.Biz product for reserving a username is thorough, and they were able to customize it to meet our needs."

The TM.Biz User Name Reserve completes the manual and tedious process of reserving usernames on social networks. TM.Biz completes all the stages of establishing user accounts and provides a dedicated mailbox to eliminate spam and marketing messages from flooding client's primary email addresses.

The TM.Biz Status Watch service monitors and notifies clients if someone reserves their "watched" username or a new social network emerges that they should be aware of.

TM.Biz's In-Use Reports compile screen shots of public profiles where trademarks are already taken as a username. Trademark lawyers may then investigate if trademark infringement or dilution is impacting their client's trademark.

All TM.Biz reports are available in downloadable text-only formats to allow law firms and resellers to generate private-label reports for their clients.

"The role of usernames as brand identifiers is following a similar pattern as domain names," says Barrett. "However, the protection mechanisms trademarks enjoy with domain names do not exist on social networks; there is no uniform dispute policy to recover violated trademarks; there is no public Whois to determine the username's owner; and there are no anticybersquatting laws to prevent consumer confusion over the source behind a trademark."

Trademark lawyers are invited to apply for a free account at www.tm.biz (http://www.tm.biz).

About TM.Biz and EnCirca

TM.Biz (http://www.tm.biz) is a service of EnCirca, Inc. (http://www.encirca.com), a domain name registrar. EnCirca has protected thousands of trademarks since 2001. EnCirca's President, Tom Barrett, has over 15 years of experience in trademark research and protection. He was previously Vice President of Thomson & Thomson, where he led the development of the SAEGIS trademark research platform.