from barbara m: Delightful New Characters: The Drippils

Approaching deadlines from the Trademark Office led me to the task of inventing a new cast of characters that lived somewhere in the land of Heaven's Wait. What would I name this new species? I already knew where that question would lead me…back to Google, to see if I could come up with a word that wasn't already in use. That research was always very time-consuming. I didn't know who these characters were, what they looked like or where in Heaven's Wait they lived. I just started thinking up nonsensical words and testing them against the Google and Trademark Office sites. Someone somewhere was already using most of the words I assumed I had just invented. It was surely a tedious trial-and-error process.

Finally I came up with a word that no one seemed to lay claim to…Drippils. Okay, that sounded like fun. But what the heck were Drippils? It didn't take long for my imagination to kick in. They were live, animated drops of water, of course. They were children. They wore colorful hats. They were silly and playful and moved about in various ways. While one character hopped, another flew, and still another jumped. They lived in a tiny community that was nestled under a droopy vovo plant, which was already an element of vegetation in the land of Heaven's Wait. The Drippils' houses were carved from the precious fruit of the land; their fences were made of wood slivers; their chimneys also wore hats. The names of female Drippils ended in "ee," while those of the male Drippils ended in "ey." I felt I now had enough information to get me off the ground with product development under the appropriate trademark categories.

As I suspected, however, the Drippils soon took on a life of their own. Once I started drawing the various figures in Illustrator, I saw their personalities popping out at me. And as I developed the products, I imagined all kinds of children's stories and activities that could revolve around the Drippils. If I wasn't careful, I could end up with even more on my plate, which was already overflowing! So for the most part, I stuck to the original list of products that was in my trademark application: a storybook, a diary, a recipe book, a writing journal, greeting cards, bookmarks, and a CD that included a multimedia version of the storybook, as well as home-printable journals, diaries, and Drippil coloring pages. Of course, I couldn't help but throw a couple of handmade card games into the mix.

It took months to design and tweak, hand-produce, and take specimen photos of the various products. Once I had mailed sample Drippil packages off to a small trial audience, I sent the photos, along with the shipping receipts, to the Trademark Office, and kept my fingers crossed that the requirements had been met. After a couple of months passed, I got word that my trademarks had gone through. About five months later, my official Certificates of Registration arrived.