Today we announce the Open Usage Commons, an organization focused on extending the philosophy and definition of open source to project trademarks. This new entity came to be in collaboration with academic leaders, independent contributors, and SADA Systems.

Our Velcro Brand Companies legal team decided to clear a few things up about using the VELCRO® trademark correctly – because they’re lawyers and that’s what they do. When you use “velcro” as a noun or a verb (e.g., velcro shoes), you diminish the importance of our brand and our lawyers lose their *insert fastening sound.* So please, do not say “velcro shoes” (or “velcro wallet” or “velcro gloves”) - we repeat “velcro” is not a noun or a verb. VELCRO® is our brand. #dontsayvelcro

Watch our next video about YOUR feedback: https://youtu.be/ZLWMQLMiTPk

Learn more at http://www.velcro.com

See the making of this video and more behind-the-scenes footage: https://youtu.be/oP-fZdFfOGE.

Citigroup’s lawsuit against A. T. & T. for trademark infringement, and more of the week’s biggest stories in economics and business.

This week, Stan Muller launches the Crash Course Intellectual Property mini-series. So, what is intellectual property, and why are we teaching it? Well, intellectual property is about ideas and their ownership, and it's basically about the rights of creators to make money from their work. Intellectual property is so pervasive in today's world, we thought you ought to know a little bit about it. We're going to discuss the three major elements of IP: Copyright, Patents, and Trademarks.