Top 100 trademark words 2012

Once again we have looked at all EU and USPTO trademark applications the last year - 2012 - and done a quick analysis of what words are used.

Raw lists of the popular 1000 trademark words can be found here: Top 1000 USPTO trademark words 2012, Top 1000 CTM trademark words 2012

The total number of different "words" are over 130.000. The distribution is as usual: 90 percent are used less than 5 times, like PINTEREST and JABRA, and the top 10 percent are used up to 2000 times, like ONE and LOVE.

Popular USPTO trademark words

What words were popular 2012 when it came to getting a US trademark registration?

A new word on the top list is CLOUD, wich was strong already in 2011 with 372 occurrences and this year made it to the top list when it showed up in 454 trademarks applications. Compare that with 2006, when CLOUD only showed up in 28 trademark applications.

Other trademark words moving up on the list are: WATER, FREE, STAR, BODY an NATIONAL.

Single letters are very popular in trademark filings, like T, N and E. A rising star here is the letter M, which appears in more than 700 trademark applications last year compared to 450 the year before.

Words moving down on the list are GREEN, REAL, USA and SOCIAL.

The top 100 USPTO trademark words 2012:


1 life 51 day
2 solutions 52 black
3 world 53 water
4 one 54 red
5 love 55 america
6 new 56 fresh
7 health 57 natural
8 be 58 our
9 american 59 bar
10 care 60 b
11 home 61 s
12 t 62 free
13 go 63 plus
14 n 64 music
15 good 65 city
16 power 66 do
17 all 67 more
18 up 68 out
19 center 69 x
20 live 70 usa
21 energy 71 star
22 smart 72 from
23 me 73 sports
24 co 74 way
25 green 75 social
26 no 76 art
27 big 77 kids
28 services 78 that
29 better 79 c
30 business 80 first
31 its 81 make
32 technology 82 mobile
33 get 83 living
34 international 84 not
35 pro 85 service
36 e 86 foundation
37 m 87 body
38 real 88 national
39 club 89 can
40 de 90 systems
41 time 91 healthy
42 best 92 great
43 network 93 people
44 blue 94 1
45 design 95 institute
46 management 96 house
47 just 97 cloud
48 food 98 where
49 system 99 little
50 global 100 association

Note that we have eliminated the most common "stop words" like  THE, IS, AT, YOU, AND etc, and some company attributes like INC, LLC, COMPANY and GROUP.

Popular EU trademark words

We have also done a similar analysis of the very popular EU trademark registration called CTM (from OHIM). A CTM (Community Trade Mark) covers 27 countries and many languages. Surprisingly there is not a large  difference between the EU trademark list and the US trademarks. English is the dominating language, at least in the  in the pan-European trademark registration CTM.

A couple of trademark words you find in the CTM top list that you don't find in the USPTO top list: ECO, HOTEL, LONDON, QUALITY, ROYAL, EASY, EUROPEAN and PARIS.

How to raise seed capital in Europe: "Secret" 1

Most advice when it comes to raising seed capital focuses on the pitch, the slides and the business plan. What to say and how to say it.

But fundraising is not only a pitch - it’s also a process.

"Secret" 1: Raising seed capital is a sales process.

Accept that raising capital is a sales process. You are selling yourself, the team, your idea, your vision, business concept and prototype. You are selling your stock in return for cash, network and advice. You are selling an option to future value. In short: You are selling.

If you approach it as a sales process - what are the consequences?

Sales is to an extent a numbers game. You should use the classic sales funnel when you are about to start raising seed capital: The more good "prospects" (potential investors) you put into the funnel, the more "sales" (investments) you get out in the other end.

  1. The cold prospect list. This is the key to success. Without it your reach will be too limited and you won’t get to dance with the investor of your dream.
    • At the top you put your dream investors. Then you add another 20 angel or VC’s. Don’t write only their company names. You will have to identify the individual person and his or her email address.
    • Craft and send the pitch email to the first ten. In Europe most of the potential angels and VC’s will read your email even if you are not referred.
    • Don’t bother calling them before they have read your email.
  2. Existing contacts. Your existing contacts are your best shots, but they are probably very limited in the angel and VC community. So make the most out of these contacts:
    • Walk through your list of contacts and ask yourself: “Who does he/she know in the angel/VC community?” (LinkedIn if possible)
    • Take meetings with your contacts even when you think the chance is small that they can help you.
  3. Generate new contacts. Network as much as you can and as early as possible to gain more contacts.
    • Attend start-up contests, conferences, international and local events for entrepreneurs.
    • Ask every one you meet and talk to: “Who do you think I should talk to? Can you refer me?”
    • With this sales approach you add a quantity focus, which I believe is important at least in Europe where the VC and angel market is less mature than in the US.

If this is your first professional "sales tour", there are another two positive consequences of regarding  fundraising as a sales process:

  • You demystify the topic. A lot of entrepreneurs get scared by the fundraising; they don’t think they understand it and they see it as a major obstacle. But selling is easier to relate to and feel confident about.
  • You are about to get a crash course in high level sales. Fundraising takes a lot of time, so instead of “wasting” the time, look at it as some serious sales training.

Can a first time entrepreneur really give any advice regarding fundraising? Well, that’s just it: I believe raising money the first time is a very different experience than doing it a second time. The second time you have your own experience, you have a track record and you have more contacts. The first time you usually don’t have much. Since we just succeeded with our first round of financing, I thought I’d share some of my experiences.

There is so much good advice out there so instead of repeating what others have said much better, I will just point you to some very good sources:

Chris Dixon http://cdixon.org/contents/,
Fred Wilson http://www.avc.com/a_vc/archives.html
Steve Blank http://steveblank.com/.
Great link collection: http://tappen.posterous.com/nice-summary-stanleytang-256-must-read-conten#comment
And of course a lot of great answers on Quora.com

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