[A2k] Trademark of Noble Prize

[James Love]

* As harmless as it may seem to invoke the name of Nobel to fashion
prestige, the Nobel Prize has been under trademark license for more
than 20 years, and Nobel Foundation employees keep a steady eye on
news releases and current events, watching for the misuse of the
name.  . .  "We are currently sending approximately two to three
letters of warning per month," says Jonna Petterson, public relations
manager for the Nobel Foundation.

http://www.the-scientist.com/article/home/53352/
The Scientist
Volume 21 | Issue 7 | Page 20
By Andrea Gawrylewski
Nobel pseudo-prizes

In 1995, European Union officials made the mistake of deeming the new
European ICT Prize the "Nobel Prize" for innovation in information
and communication technologies. Soon after, they received a friendly
note from the Nobel Foundation saying they had infringed upon a
trademark license, and could face legal action. EU officials promised
to cease and desist from such comparisons, and everything resolved
amicably.

As harmless as it may seem to invoke the name of Nobel to fashion
prestige, the Nobel Prize has been under trademark license for more
than 20 years, and Nobel Foundation employees keep a steady eye on
news releases and current events, watching for the misuse of the name.

Over the past few years, Foundation employees have seen an increase
in the number of illegal uses of the Nobel's good name. "We are
currently sending approximately two to three letters of warning per
month," says Jonna Petterson, public relations manager for the Nobel
Foundation, in an e-mail. It's not surprising that Nobel staff see
more misuses of the Nobel name, as the number of prize-awarding
programs increases about 10%-15% each year, and has at least doubled
since 1990, according to Larry Tise, professor of history at East
Carolina University in Greenville, NC.

A recent press release from Prix Galien called an award "the 'Nobel
Prize' for applied medical research and development." The media has
dubbed the Association for Computing Machinery's A.M. Turing Award
"the Nobel of computer science." And even the Blue Planet Prize,
awarded by the Asahi Glass Foundation, has been called "the Nobel of
environmental science."

Not everything resolves as amicably as it did with the EU. "Usually
the recipients of these letters are willing to cease from using the
trademark; however, in a couple of cases, we have been forced to take
legal action," Petterson says.

"It seems that many new prizes or other people try to benefit from
the prestige which the Nobel awarding institution has built over the
last century," says Michael Sohlman, executive director of the Nobel
Foundation, declining to provide specifics about the Foundation's
involvement in legal cases. "But it's not our prestige, it's the
prestige of the Nobel laureates that is abused if [the name is] used
in an inappropriate way."

Sometimes the comparison is merited, Sohlman notes, such as with the
Lasker Award or Gairdner Award. Of the more than 300 Lasker Award
winners, 71 have gone on to win the Nobel Prize; 65 of the 290
Gairdner Award winners have also received Nobels.

Nobel Foundation staff can place a friendly phone call to
organizations that infringe upon the Nobel trademark in press
releases, but they have little control over the media's proclivity
towards embellishment. They've read articles dubbing the National
Academy of Engineering's Russ Prize as the Nobel of bioengineering.
Some examples are particularly egregious: Jefferson Award: Nobel of
public service? The Templeton Prize: Nobel of research and
discoveries about spiritual realities? Moreover, EU media continue to
refer to the ICT prize as the "Nobel" of its field.

It's an understandable temptation when trying to fashion interest in
a scientific award, given that the Nobel is one of the few awards
known to both scientists and nonscientists. This raises the question:
What makes a prize prestigious? A 1983 essay by Eugene Garfield
(founder of The Scientist) notes that factors that affect how the
public perceives a prize include the prize award amount (the higher
the better), how often it is awarded (often enough to not be
forgotten, but rarely enough to remain important), and how many
recipients there are (not everyone in the field should get one). But
it's not a magic formula: The American Chemical Society's highest
honor, the Priestly Medal, is often termed the Nobel Prize of
chemistry, but it carries no cash prize. The Fields Medal, awarded by
the International Mathematical Union, is considered "the Nobel of
math" and yet is awarded only once every four years.

While some uses of the Nobel name are easily forgiven, the worst
cases involve companies that use the word Nobel to make a buck,
Sohlman notes. The Foundation has confronted an automotive company
trying to name a new car "the Nobel." It has had to correct schools
or educational services that say attendance guarantees students a
Nobel Prize. Even a liposuction clinic was called the "Nobel Clinic,"
at least for a while.

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James Packard Love
Knowledge Ecology International
mailto:james.love@keionline.org
tel. +1.202.332.2670 / U.S. mobile+1.202.361.3040, Geneva mobile
+41.76.413.6584

"If everyone thinks the same: No one thinks." Bill Walton"