March 06, 2014

How to Teach Kids To Ski With Trademarks

by Guest Blogger

This week, I am on vacation with my family in Snowmass, Colorado, which is part of the ASPEN/SNOWMASS (U.S. Reg. No. 2,800,199) ski resort.

My wife and I are teaching our son how to ski. He is only 2, which presents a lot of interesting challenges. Needless to say, we are not engaging in a lengthy discourse about skiing concepts with him.

To get started, we rented the following equipment from the TREE HOUSE KIDS' ADVENTURE CENTER (U.S. Reg. No. 3,636,045):

VOLKL (U.S. Reg. No. 2,392,735) RTM Junior skis;

NORDICA (U.S. Reg. No. 2,336,107) Nordy boots; and

GIRO (U.S. Reg. No. 3,722,128) Slingshot helmet.

After that, we took him a kid-friendly area to start skiing. Needless to say, antics ensued. Collectively, my wife and I have zero experience teaching someone how to ski. Therefore, the "lesson" mostly consisted of me holding my son between my legs as I skied around. That got old quickly and we soon retired for the day.

That evening, my wife did some digging on the internet and found a great set of instructional videos at, which were produced by Level Nine Sports. The videos explain that there are 2 key concepts to teaching a young child to ski: (1) getting a good wedge so they can go slow and stop (i.e., making "pizza"); and (2) maintaining a good body position (i.e, doing an "airplane").

As you can imagine, it is very difficult for our 2 year old to properly position his skis into a wedge. This task was made much easier by using tip connectors. EDGIE WEDGIE (U.S. Reg. No. 1,825,287) is the leading brand, and it consists of rubber tubing attached to clamps which screw onto the ski tips.

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EDGIE WEDGIE tip connectors on my son's skis[/caption]

The next day we sought to apply the concepts that we learned from the Internet. Lo and behold, it worked!

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My son making "pizza" and showing off his "airplane"[/caption]

One of the unforeseen benefits of using the EDGIE WEDGIE tip connectors is that you can use your ski pole to either pull or slow down your child (as demonstrated above by my wife).

My son had a blast and is looking forward to hitting the slopes again. Of course, he is also looking forward to throwing snowballs at his dad:

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Incoming snowball![/caption]

In addition to the skiing lessons, there are important trademark lessons to be learned from our experience. For example, federal trademark registrations are not just for large companies like The Aspen Skiing Company, which owns a number of registrations relating to the ASPEN/SNOWMASS ski resort. Federal trademark registrations are also important for small companies like Ski Teaching Products LLC, which makes the EDGIE WEDGIE tip connectors.

As I have explained in a previous post, federal registration provides enhanced legal protection for your brand, such as a presumptive right to nationwide use of the trademark. A federal trademark registration also makes enforcement activities less expensive and can lead to a greater recovery in a lawsuit. In addition, a federal trademark registration can increase the value of a business as investors and buyers usually see federal trademark protection as an indicator of established brand value and sound business protection.
