Shouts, in the context of audio messages used on the Internet as part of social media, have been given trademark protection by the US Trademark Office.
This is of course good news for Shoutomatic, the web service that allows you to record and deliver short audio messages via Twitter or Facebook or directly from their own web site and who did the actual trademark submission.
No you won’t have to insert a ™ after using “shout” in your overall writing.
But if you’re a startup in social media space—which is almost redundant thing to say in the NYC area—you can’t add an audio feature to your product and then describe it as a “shout” in your marketing. Technically, if it causes confusion in the minds of consumer, it’s considered an infringement.
Try yelp instead. No, that’s taken.
Scream?
Related articles
- Tales from Startup Alley: Shoutomatic (technoverseblog.com)
- Our Favorite Biz Apps, Summer Edition (technoverseblog.com)
- Shoutomatic
