A Free Ride For YellowPages?

PRLog (Press Release) - Jul 28, 2009 -
There's a new kid on the block and they are taking no prisoners. The grand daddy of U.S. telecom, AT&T (NYSE: T), and its nationally known YellowPages.com, 1-800-YellowPages and Real Yellow Pages telephone book brands are synonymous with AT&T. The publicly traded AT&T has spent millions trying to secure this very popular brand within the United States. In 2004 they purchased YellowPages.com for $120 million, in 2006 1-800-YellowPages and 1-888-YellowPages for nearly $2 million and in 2008 1-877-YellowPages, 1-866-YellowPages and TollFreeYellowPages.com for a cool $500,000.

A new site called www.YELLOWPAGES.travel is picking up steam within the United States and it appears to be doing it on the back of AT&T, legally. AT&T has no trademark on "YellowPages" therefore YellowPages.travel is getting a free ride on the AT&T - YellowPages.com coat tail and there's not much AT&T can do about it from a legal standpoint. AT&T however does have a fiduciary duty to it's shareholders as a publicly traded company to secure and properly manage all of it's intellectual property. Albeit, "YellowPages" is not a Federal trademark of AT&T and is considered generic, the word itself is synonymous with AT&T considering AT&T owns the primary domains for this word.

YellowPages just happens to be the only word in the English language that has billions of dollars in branding behind it but is a non trademarked word that anyone can use. AT&T may have a problem with YellowPages.travel as it continues to grow in popularity because of its YellowPages branding. Shareholder lawsuits down the road against AT&T claiming management's failure to protect its IP or even management incompetence could be possible. Furthermore, if AT&T had any plans whatsoever to spin off its Interactive or YellowPages division as its own entity, this could be hindered as there already is a player in the U.S. marketplace using this brand. YellowPages.travel offering a consumer guarantee / warranty program using branded trademarks such as YellowGuaranteed.com, YellowProtection.com, YellowWarranty.com, YellowAssurance.com and other services like YellowSecured.com and YellowOutsourcing.com could be a road block to YellowPages.com's future plans for similar programs.

Although this may not effect AT&T's stock price, it will effect its Interactive / YellowPages.com division directly. Run away IP with no legal recourse is a problem no company wants to face, especially a publicly traded one like AT&T. I wonder how long it will take before class action lawsuits are filed against AT&T for negligence.