Joe Strahl, the founder of Mr. Trademark, is one example of an entrepreneur who worked to stay under the radar. After several years of my constant badgering, he has finally permitted me, in this book, to discuss his activities in print. Joe was one of the first people to see a practical application of the Internet’s inherent tendency to blast apart functions that had previously been handled under one roof.

As detailed earlier, Joe realized that trademark searches involved two distinct functions: (1) searching multiple databases to see if a specific word or phrase (or a similar word or phrase) has already been trademarked and (2) interpreting the results of this search. At the time of Joe’s epiphany, lawyers handled both functions and typically charged high fees even when no interpretation of the results was necessary. In a large number of cases, conflicts with earlier trademarks were either very clearly existent or very clearly nonexistent. In general, lawyers needed to become involved in interpreting the results only in the gray areas, when some form of trademark conflict might exist. Joe also realized that the typical lawyer took several days to perform a trademark search, but a specialized business that focused solely on working with these databases could offer a 24hour turnaround as well as far lower prices.

With these insights, Joe established a low-cost trademark search service that advertised principally through the Internet. Quickly, customers from all over the world started visiting and using Joe’s service through the site. Joe’s business was a success.

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