Kaner, Fiedler & Associates has completed the process of registering BBST as our trademark. We will be revising the course slides soon to show BBST ® (the R in the circle) and to include an acknowledgment in the acknowledgement paragraph on the front slide of each course. Please acknowledge the trademark when you publicize or write about the BBST courses. The proper notice is “BBST is a registered trademark of Kaner, Fiedler & Associates ,LLC”).
We decided to register the trademark a long time ago, when we saw a few training companies marketing “BBST training” even though they didn’t have any connection with us and, as far as we could tell, their principals had not taken BBST courses. That was reinforced as people we didn’t know approached us with marketing ideas that seemed highly inappropriate. Registration protects “BBST” from being hijacked for other purposes. Registration has finally been completed and so it is time to start applying it.
The BBST courses, including the instructor’s course and the instructor’s manual continue to be Creative Commons-licensed. Anyone can teach those materials. Anyone can advertise that they teach those materials (as long as those are the materials they actually teach). Anyone can modify the course as they see fit and advertise that they teach a course that is partially based on those materials. Nothing in the registration of BBST limits any of these things. It merely protects “BBST” from inappropriate use (i.e. use that goes beyond these extremely broad limits).
If you have specific questions about the BBST trademark, please ask.