Summary and Comprehensive Plans

Discussion Questions

Words 1,230

1. How registration of a small firm’s trademark would be helpful in protecting its brand?

If a company’s trademark becomes common, anybody can use it without fear of a claim of Trademark violation from the trademark owner. This is because the word or symbol no longer implies to the public that the products or services bearing the trademark originated from the trademark owner. In other words, the trademark is associated by the public as a description of or the name of the product or service and not as the brand name. Loss of a trademark not only rejects consumers the opportunity to identify favored brands and repeat satisfactory purchases, it also wipes out the owner’s investment in its valuable asset.

Trademarks must be protected; the choice is that they will be lost as has happened many times in the past when their holders have allowed them to be misused.

2. In what situation would you use SUMMARY PLAN and COMPREHENSIVE PLAN ?

The purpose of the Summary plan is to entice the person who reads to review, or demand to review, the entire business plan. The Summary Plan is not a mini version of the entire business plan. Thorough, but easily understood, summary describing a comprehensive plan’s  provisions that must be provided to participants and beneficiaries.

Comprehensive plan is usually a two part document. One part is the Basic Plan Document that contains language and definitions, which are the same for all plans. The other part is an Adoption Agreement, which is a fill in the blank document, which contains employer information and specific plan provisions. The Master Plan, or Comprehensive Plan, is the planning document which gives a general framework which includes planning for the development of downtown, or the center city, area. Its purpose is to lay out a future for an area, and to provide reasonable certainty and predictability for potential investors.