By Keith Loven
Some ideas are not as new as they seem. We were discussing (by Skype – we’re keeping our distance) the options for coping with minimising social interaction, and I recalled from my student days in Birmingham that one brewery there – Davenports – used to offer a home delivery service – beer to your doorstep like the old-fashioned milk deliveries. They used the slogan “Beer at Home” and the company’s telegraphic address was “Beer at home, Birmingham”.
I had to explain to my younger colleagues what this meant: before the advent of e-mail, or even fax, the fastest way to send a message was by telegram – one went to the Post Office and filled in a form with the message and the address and paid a fee for its transmission and delivery based on the number of words. Many businesses had their own special telegraphic address, which acted, in effect, in the same way as a domain name, giving a unique shortcut. For some companies, it was a single word or a code, but others might also have the city included.
Telegrams are a thing of the past now, but routing e-mails via a domain is the modern equivalent. Where your domain is a distinctive word, rather than a generic label, you might consider consolidating your protection of it by registering it as your trademark. This establishes your ownership in a way that any number of domain registrations will not.
Contact us on 01522 801111 to get help with registering your trademarks, whether or not they are your modern “telegraphic address”.
