Death is not a subject many people want to touch. Any kind of preparation is usually initiated by the person anticipating their own death, because anyone else who brings it up can be accused of summoning bad luck or having interest in an inheritance. In instances when someone willingly prepares for the end of their earthly existence, it tends to focus on general dispositions regarding personal assets (usually property) or wishes for ceremonies leading up to a funeral.
However, there are many fine details that tend to fall through the cracks: access to funds to pay bills, the bureaucracy to close bank accounts, the documents needed for filing claims or taxes, accounting of personal belongings, etc. When the surviving family is unprepared, they are vulnerable to making unnecessarily bad and/or expensive decisions which only add to the stress and grief that they are already facing with the loss of a loved one.
Parting Planner is a workshop that enables a greater sense of control through the understanding of the implications and administrative requirements that are triggered by a death in the family. The program covers a wide range of topics that allow participants to explore the needs and priorities of their families, and they are provided a set of tools to guide their preparations when they are ready to do their own Parting Plans.
As a startup, the business sought the help of the Ateneo Intellectual Property Office (AIPO) to secure and protect its intellectual property so that business operations could proceed without any issues regarding infringements. Ms. Marla Agustin, the registrant, sent a trademark registration request form to AIPO to protect the trademark of Parting Planner. In the request, the trademark was titled “Parting Planner” and was categorized as a word mark and a figurative mark.
Image: Sample of the Parting Planner mark
The trademark type was established to be figurative with words, as shown in the sample mark above. The identification of the details of the mark was done using the Vienna Classification. The Vienna Classification is an international classification of figurative elements of marks established by the Vienna Agreement in 1973. Its purpose was to facilitate trademark anticipation searches and ease the workload when documents are exchanged at an international level. The classification involves a system that divides figurative elements into specific categories and subcategories to ease the identification process.
After the elements of the mark have been distinguished, the mark was then categorized according to the goods and services provided by the business using the Nice Classification. The Nice Classification is the classification of goods and services to which the marks registered belong. This is done to clearly describe the application of the trademark.
A trademark is a type of intellectual property that consists of words, signs, symbols, or a logo of recognizable design or expression that identifies the product or service being provided. It is the brand identity of a business that makes it distinguishable from other products or services. Parting Planner is registered as a workshop or lecture that enables the proactive planning of death. Its trademark represents the business both figuratively, through the presence of the icon inspired by the Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) symbols, and literally, through the name of the business, Parting Planner.
On the 9th of July 2021, the trademark registration of Parting Planner was filed to IPOPHIL. The registration was then processed and was published for opposition on the IPO e-Gazette on the 27th of May 2022. A party may file an opposition to the trademark within a period of thirty (30) days from the publication date if there is any opposition to the registration that may involve identical or confusingly similar marks. Fortunately, the trademark registration received no hitches and was officially registered on the 27th of June 2022. Ms. Marla Agustin was awarded the certificate of registration for Parting Planner, acknowledging the success of the registration of the trademark.
Information about the program can be requested from parting.planner@gmail.com or viewed at https://sites.google.com/view/partingplanner/home.
References:
World Intellectual Property Office (n.d.). Vienna Classification. https://www.wipo.int/classifications/vienna/en/
World Intellectual Property Office (n.d.). Nice Classification. https://www.wipo.int/classifications/nice/en/
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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author/s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Ateneo de Manila University.
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