With the 132nd Annual Meeting of the International Trademark Association just days away, I find myself thinking back to the first INTA annual meetings I attended in the late 1980s and how much things have changed.   Back then, Saul Lefkowitz, our inspiration, mentor, and friend, was still with us, dispensing sage wisdom about law and life with his “trademark” gentle humor, keen feel for the subtleties and nuances of the law, and a photographic memory of every trademark decision dating back to the times when primitive ranchers first embossed their brands on the hides of their cattle.  Go to Saul with a seemingly intractable issue, and if the answer was not at his fingertips among the hundreds of case summaries he kept on index cards in his desk drawer, he would stretch a long arm across his desk to snatch a dusty USPQ from his bookshelf and, as if by instinct, crack open the thin tan volume to the precise page containing the dispositive answer.

Back then, of course, INTA was still the United States Trademark Association, or, ironically, for an organization dedicated to protecting the integrity of brand names, USTA, an acronym it shared with the United States Tennis Association.  Fortunately, the organization of short-tempered Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe never got wind of the tennis tournament held at “our” USTA’s annual meeting, or there would have been big trouble.

Back before the Internet, domain names, cybersquatting, UDRP, and metatags, trademark disputes remained focused on terrestrial concerns, and when most Americans heard the word “brand” they thought of familiar products like Levi’s® jeans, Campbell’s® soup, and Ivory® soap.  Today, they simply look in the mirror because the phenomenon of “personal branding” and “personal brands” has become universal.   A quick search of Amazon.com® reveals dozens upon dozens of books eager to help each of us build our personal brand.  There’s even “The Complete Idiot’s Guide To Branding Yourself” to help even the most brand–challenged among us “stand out from the crowd” just like Target®, Starbucks®, and Victoria’s Secret®.  And we no longer have to content ourselves with traditional face−to−face networking and relationship building. We can market our personal brands on LinkedIn®, Facebook®, and, most recently, on Twitter® in 140 characters or less.

No doubt the 132nd annual INTA meeting will be bigger, better, and more exhausting than ever.– Long gone are the banks of hotel payphones and carousel slide presentations from USTA meetings of a bygone era. –This year, iPhone® evangelists will vie with BlackBerry® disciples, and there are sure to be a healthy number of iPads® in lieu of laptops. But for all the seismic technological, cultural, and social changes that have swept over our profession, the essence of INTA remains intact and true to the ideals and high standards embodied by the quintessential INTA patriarch, Saul Lefkowitz. It remains an eclectic and sophisticated international gathering of elite trademark professionals dedicated to the proposition of protecting brand names—yours, mine, and ours.