A Stern and Firm Warning from Juliet

—–Original Message—–
Sent: Monday, July 15, 2002 12:59 PM
To: ‘Felix Jung’
Subject: RE: 2 seconds and 3 days later…

But I do have a SERIOUS bone to pick with you. I clicked on “Yesterday” on your site, and saw this: I ended up staying at work late, doing stupid “trademark” searches for potential brand names. Glad I could help out, but it was grunt work – any warm body could have complied the same data.

Excuse me, “any warm body?” Did you search Dialog’s Trademarkscan, one of the essential resources for information about trademarks? Did you search using full text or with indexing terms or some combination of both? Did you use proximity operators and truncation? Or did you just type in a phrase and hope for the best?

And how did you compile and present the results? Did you list dead-on and near-hits in order of relevance or interest? Did you indicate at the outset of the list your summary and recommendations?

Oh, beware, portnoy, of dismissing the Art of Online Searching. We know how to find you.

I failed to mention, in my post a few days back, that my company only does a "preliminary" search for brand names. Once we consider a particular word "safe" to use (ie, it’s not currently the name of a competitor’s product), we then pass the name to the client’s lawyers. They are the ones who do the serious searching.

My friend Juliet, who is trained in the mysterious arts of Library Science, is right to criticize my rather flippant approach to research. There are many who spend their entire lives devoted to it. She also likes to give me shit every once in a while. :D

Before I applied to study poetry, I gave some very serious consideration to getting a Masters in Library Science. I think it’s still there, on the backburner. I love books, have no doubt about that. But I’m not sure if I love information, if I love locating the right book, enough to warrant spending time to pursue such a degree. The one main benefit… it’s hard to beat a library as your place of employment.