Four days after our site launch I received a very nice email from Amy Blankson, Chief Operating Officer for Good Think Inc.
In case you didn’t know, Good Think Inc. is Shawn Achor’s consulting company. Amy congratulated us on the site launch, she loved the idea behind the movement (e.g., spreading the happiness advantage through random acts of kindness) and she casually mentioned “The Happiness Advantage” was trademarked.
I thought to myself “That’s interesting that she thought to mention the trademark.” which, in turn made me think I had better look into trademarks a little over the weekend. My research taught me trademark laws trump domain ownership. I learned that just because you purchase an available domain name, it doesn’t mean you actually have the right to use it. Companies that peddle domain names will sell you any name that’s available, however it’s your responsibility to determine whether or not the same phrase is trademarked.
For fun, I recommend you check out the Government’s online trademark database some time. I can tell you from first-hand experience there are very few phrases that are not trademarked these days.
Amy and I exchanged a series of emails and I agreed to use a different domain name to disambiguate our work from theirs. Afterward, a couple of the core support members in the office brainstormed ideas and came up with the domain name we now have today. To be honest with you, I actually prefer our new domain name. There are no worries for any of you who have one of the first books we sent out with the original site domain name. Anyone who uses “theHappinessAdvantage.org” will be seamlessly and permanently redirected to “ShareTheAdvantage.org” so your book legacy will remain intact.
Another bit of good news from this part of the story is that I am scheduled to have lunch with Amy next week to explore the potential to help each other, in our respective efforts to spread The Happiness Advantage. Ah…lemonade from lemons. I’ll let you know how the meeting goes after next week.
- Frank