Every week, The Competitive Insight lists the Utah patents and trademarks pursued by Utah businesses.  Starting this week, I'll be giving a thumbs up to the most interesting ones that come across our desks.  Here's our favorites from this week.

Patent of the Week

7,273,364	Drop box with thermal isolation	David J. Laws, Provo, UT; M. Taw Lindsey, Metlakatla, AK	MFS, LLC, Orem, UT
7,273,571	Molded table and its method of manufacture	R. Dru Laws, Orem, UT; Kelly Black, Orem, UT	MFS, LLC, Orem, UT

Normally, I don't list two patents of the week, but MFS has a very interesting patent strategy.  MFS is patenting around its table technology.  If there's a piece of innovation, it appears that MFS files on it.  This strategy can work well because it makes it more difficult and time consuming for a competitor to make sure it doesn't infringe on several patents.   Furthermore, you're never sure what the hard piece to work around is going to be.  A competitive advantage can sometimes be solidified by a series of patents around an important technology.  If a competitor cannot practice their patent without leveraging your technology, you can be pretty sure they'll come to the bargaining table.

Trademark of the Week

WARMTRAX

Black Pearl Technologies, LLC

Salt Lake City, UT

Guess what this trademark relates to?  Yeah, warm stuff under your feet.  This trademark hits a homerun because I can identify with its important selling points.  They're selling a product that gets rid of cold from underfoot.  When you dive deeper, trax also suggests modularity.  Thumbs up to your marketing department. 

Just to be above-board, Black Pearl is a client of my firm.  We thought their choice in WARMTRAX was outstanding and still do.