If you haven't reached your threshold for "e" everything and you're planning to brand your Web site, company name, process or product with the nauseatingly overused letter,
better act fast. The international property research and monitoring service Thomson & Thomson reports that the use of "e" as a prefix in trademark names grew by 220% last
year (vs. only 50% in 1998), and that the pace of "e-Mark" (yuck yuck) registration intensified greatly during the second half of 1999. Today, roughly 4,900 trademarks and
110,000 domain names begin with "e." Not surprisingly, the computer and electronics industries lead the pack with 1,100 "e" trademarks, followed by advertising, consulting and
business management firms, with 700.
(Ian Cross, 617/376-5103, [email protected])