WJL
Contributor
Rick, you own a business. Wouldn't you be unhappy if one of your competitors started using using a name that was the same as yours? How about if a competitor used a term or slogan that you use in your business, that your customers associate with you?
Names and words that are understood to designate a certain source for goods and services are trademarks, i.e. a "mark" used in "trade" that identifies the source. Halcyon has ALREADY, for a long time, used "DIR" and "Doing It Right" as distinguishing marks to designate its goods. In its trademark application, it is claiming that it has generated enough recognition in the scuba marketplace that those marks are associated wth Halcyon.
Like any trademark owner, Halcyon has the right to prevent its competitors from using its marks in such a way as to create a possibility of confusion in the marketplace as to the origin of competing goods or services. You can't start a dive equipment company and call it Halcyon, because Halcyon owns the trademark "Halcyon" in the scuba industry. And Halcyon is claiming that you can't sell scuba equipment and use the terms DIR or Doing It Right, because those terms are trademarks associated with Halcyon for scuba equipment and services.
Halcyon's competitors can say whatever they want about their gear, as long as they don't use the terms DIR or Doing It Right as a designation for their goods or services.
If Halcyon wants to keep its rights in the marks DIR and Doing It Right, it will have to sue infringers. If Halcyon lets others use these terms to describe their competing goods, Halcyon runs the risk of losing whatever rights it may have in those marks.
Here you have to understand that rights in marks are limited to particular areas of commerce. Halcyon only claims a trademark in "Doing It Right" in specific areas of scuba equipment and education. The mark may have other connotations in other areas of commerce. In fact, there are other trademark registrations for "Doing It Right" and "DIR" and similar words in different types of commerce. My guess is that Halcyon will not have much trouble registering these marks for its business.
If you check into this, I think you will agree that this IANTD article was an attempt by Tom Mount to pull Gerge Irvine's chain by using George's words to describe diving gear and procedures that George would never agree were DIR. As such, it really was an acknowledgement that the phrase "Doing It Right" had already acquired an acknowledged association with a particular style of diving.
Any agency can claim whatever it wants about the quality or superiority of its training. Assuming that Halcyon licenses GUE to use the mark, competing agencies won't be able to use the phrase "Doing It Right" to describe their programs. In the same way, GUE can't use PADI's slogans, such as "The Way the World Learns to Dive", to describe its training programs.
You have made the point before that the phrase offends you. My reaction is that you shouldn't take it so personally. If you don't agree with DIR techniques and protocols, why should it bother you what the name is?
As a marketing tool, it's genius, in my opinion. I think that the mark got started almost by accident, but its power was recognized quickly. People recognize the mark immediately, and even those opposed to it can't seem to stop talking about it every chance they get. That kind of market awareness is the goal of any advertising effort.
I once asked a guy who wrote advertising jingles why his customers paid him to write such annoying tunes. His response was illuminating: his customers didn't care if anyone liked the jingles, they just cared if they stuck in your head. In that respect, if no other, the phrase "Doing It Right" is a complete success because it sticks in every diver's mind, like it or not.
