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For the last couple years, the International Legal Technology Association annual conference has used smart devices attached to badges that allow attendees to rapidly share contact information. Bizzabo, which brands itself as “#1 Event Management Software for B2B Conferences” provides these nifty little devices. And while I’ve carried these around for multiple ILTA-sponsored shows and have the app sitting there on my phone, I never gave the logo much thought… until someone changed my perspective.
I was chatting with the folks at Wordrake about the latest version of their legal editing software for Word and Outlook. Wordrake’s known for giving attorneys a leg up in automatically editing for brevity, simplicity, or both. The new version delivers a number of requested features giving lawyers more power to design their experience with the tool. But then they casually pointed to my badge — which looks like this, featuring the Bizzabo “B” logo.
They pointed out something that, as they put it, “once you see it you can’t unsee it.”
Wordrake, as a company, probably holds a heightened awareness of the letter “w.” But now that I’d seen this I couldn’t help but run it by some other attendees. I’m not saying this raises an intellectual property issue, but I am saying that literally everyone who saw this said the exact same word immediately afterward:
“Walgreen’s.”
I mean…
OK, that’s not exactly true. It’s not a perfect match, with slight differences in the angle of the italicization and the distance between the loops and the exact shape of the serif. And orienting it as a B and not a W managed to successfully keep it from anyone attending ILTA’s notice for years.
But there’s a resemblance!
Which is the fun of intellectual property work, of course. There’s a lot of money on the line in tussles over branding, but also… it’s fun to quibble over the different number of angels you can fit within the loops of the B/W. It makes managing an IP practice subtly different from running any other practice too. As it happened, I also had a chance to chat with IP management software provider Anaqua about the how everything from managing renewals to simple cost forecasting is unique to the area, requiring its own management tools. We talk a lot about practice management differences across firm sizes, but IP is its own animal and — whether it’s an independent boutique or part of a larger firm culture — needs separate tools.
At least Walgreen’s isn’t notoriously litigious over its script “W.” From Logos World:
This symbolism has repeatedly become the cause of controversy because the pharmacy company was constantly in conflict with someone. She once sued the Wegmans supermarkets because she saw an obvious similarity with the Walgreens brand in their “W.” Ultimately, the Wegmans ditched their logo. However, its origins date back to the 1930s.
That involved another retailer at least. But the company also saddled the old Washington Senators with a string of conditions on the use of the club’s W in the 1960s too, including agreeing to give Walgreen’s free promotion in exchange for the drug store not pursuing legal action.
Whatever happens, if there are any IP law school professors out there looking to spin up a new hypo, we’ve got the base right here.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
