Isn't it funny what you have to go through to protect a trademark? Palm Computing is all too aware of the trials and tribulations of trademark protection. After all, Palm had to give up the use of both "Pilot" and "PalmPilot" after the Pilot Pen Corporation of America acted to protect their pre-existing rights to the trademark "Pilot". Then, just when things stabilized around the use of "Palm" to describe Palm Computing's small computers, Microsoft put the words "Palm PC" into use. In this case, it was Palm Computing that had the pre-existing trademark and "Palm PC" was out and "Palm-sized PC" became the nomenclature of norm.

Now, of course, it became much more important for Palm Computing to do everything possible to protect and enforce the use of their trademark. While they managed to successfully transit brand awareness from the Pilot name to the Palm name, establishing yet a third brand for the same device would be a horrendous challenge.

So what does that all have to do with you and with us?

Well, of course the PalmPower trades on the brand equity of the Palm brand. When we started the magazine, we negotiated with Palm for permission to use the name "PalmPower". We were granted informal permission, always with the intent to gain much more formal, legal approval for the use of the name.

If you've been a very careful reader of PalmPower this month and last, you might have noticed a few different words on the bottom of each page and in our masthead. At the bottom of each page are now the words: "PalmPower is a trademark of Palm Computing, Inc., used by Component Enterprises, Inc. under express license from the owner."

We're now the official, exclusive licensee of the brand "PalmPower" from Palm Computing. This is a wonderful event for us, since it formalizes and officially gives us access to a wonderful, powerful brand. At the same time, we're supporting Palm's efforts to protect their brand equity in the Palm name. Special thanks to all the folks at Palm Computing for making this happen and a special thanks to Jason Firth at Steinhart & Falconer for challenging all the stereotypes and being a most cool lawyer.

This is only the first of many exciting changes you're going to be seeing from Component Enterprises in the next few months. We're finally completing our transition from an amalgam of disciplines (part software developer, part journal publisher, part trapeze artist) to what we're calling Pure Internet Publishing.