During my blogging for the past 3 years, I have never been contacted about using the wrong upper & lower case incorrectly in the product name. Though the VCE Vblock^TM Infrastructure Platform was the exception. Two days ago, I have put a simple post about VCE Vblock Platform at http://www.vblocksolutions.com/2011/04/20/the-misleading-reality-behind-vce-vblock/

I have done a small non intentional repeated mistake at the blog post by using the word vBlock rather than Vblock, which is incorrect. It seems the way most virtualization vendors specially VMware has written their products has got me as Vblock does not follow it. Example: vCenter, vSphere, vCloud, vRanger, … ect all of them had a v in small case where the second letter is what capitalizes. Carrying the same method on vblock it would have been vBlock, but after using that on my post 2 days back & being slapped already by 5 different VCE Employee I have definitely learned that you have to spell it as Vblock with an upper case for the V and lower case for the rest of the letters.

I always thought a trademark is done based on the letters of the word & does not bother about upper and lower case. I mean in my believe if a company register Vblock as a trade mark no other company should use vBlock or VBLOCK as of their own. Though I might be incorrect after what I have been seeing in the past 2 days. Though I might still be correct on how trade mark are treated by legal entities, then it would be just how serious the VCE team are about their trademark & making sure it appears the same way in every place its written. I don’t blame them on this & actually appreciate their efforts in making sure they take care of their trademark that it took them a huge amount of efforts to make it shine.

At the end, I would like to share with you specially bloggers who intend to write about VCE Vblock platform in the future the way the VCE team legal want the trade mark to be used, so you can get it right the first time. I got this to my official VMware E-mail by one of the VCE Employee & thought it was worth sharing:

===========  Official Instruction ===================

Just wanted to make sure you knew that since the name is legally trademarked it is really important that we have it written  correctly out in the marketplace.

The correct way is “Vblock” and here is the official way we are all supposed to use it according to legal:

• Vblock is a trademarked term in the US and other jurisdictions

̶            First appearance should be Vblock^TM Infrastructure Platform (with TM)

̶            Thereafter, Vblock + Noun (e.g., Vblock platform)

̶            “Vblock” not “vBlock”

=========== Official Instruction Closing =========

I thought I will share this info as many of us will end up using this term in blog post , RFP, Proposals and so on & it would help to have the correct way to do it before being caught doing it the wrong way. I am not sure if you will have a legal issue using the wrong upper and lower case when using a trademark as I don’t work for the legal department, but hey you can avoid it by doing it right in the first place.