Trademarks: A Valuable Lesson Learned

Today I was reminded how important it is to pay attention to Trademark and Copyright information. A couple of my products were removed from TPT, as they used the term "Social Thinking", which is apparently trademarked. This phrase gets thrown around so much in our field, I had no idea that this was someone's intellectual property! Unfortunately one of these removed products was my Social Skills Curriculum :(. If you have previously purchased it - don't worry! You can still access the file under your purchased items.

But - when life hands you lemons you make lemonade: I made all of the necessary changes to my curriculum, removing any reference to "Social Thinking". Instead, I used my own coined phrase: "Socio-Cognitive Skills" (and now I am thinking about trademarking THAT, haha!). I also took this opportunity to redo the product cover, which has long bothered me. The new cover is a lot less busy:

So --- problem solved and valuable lesson learned! I have reposted the curriculum HERE. I am also working with TPT to see if I can get the old version reinstated with the changed wording. I would hate to lose all of my feedback!

To avoid this happening to you, make sure to reference potential trademarks on the United States Patent and Trademark Office website.