Rosetta Stone 2009 Annual Report Download - page 19

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Table of Contents
teaching method,
effectiveness,
accessibility and convenience,
availability and quality of speech recognition, and
fun and likelihood of continued engagement,
brand recognition and reputation;
price; and
effective advertising.
We believe that we compete favorably on the basis of these factors.
Intellectual Property
Our ability to protect our core technology and intellectual property is critical to our success. We rely on a combination of measures to protect our
intellectual property, including patents, trade secrets, trademarks, trade dress, copyrights and non-disclosure and other contractual arrangements.
We have one U.S. patent that has been granted and several international and U.S. patents pending. Many of these pending patents relate to our language
teaching methods.
We hold a perpetual, irrevocable and worldwide license from the University of Colorado allowing us to use speech recognition technology for language
learning solutions. We entered into the license agreement in December 2006, and paid the University of Colorado an up-front license fee.
We have registered a variety of trademarks, including Rosetta Stone, Rosetta World, Rosetta Stone Language Learning Success & global design, Audio
Companion, Dynamic Immersion, The Fastest Way to Learn a Language. Guaranteed., Adaptive Recall, Contextual Formation, the Rosetta Stone blue stone
logo and design, the Rosetta Stone blue stone logo and design/Language Learning Success, Rosettastone.com, and SharedTalk. We have applied to register
our TOTALe, rWorld, Rosetta Studio, Rosetta Course, Rosetta Stone Totale and Simbio trademarks. All these trademarks are the subject of either registrations
or pending applications in the United States, as well as numerous countries worldwide where we do business. We intend to continue to strategically register,
both domestically and internationally, trademarks we utilize today and those we develop in the future.
We own the copyright on our Version 2 English editions. We are registering or have registered in the United States our Version 2 non-English editions
and all editions of our Version 3 languages.
We believe that the distinctive marks that we use in connection with our solutions are important in building our brand image and distinguishing our
solutions from those of our competitors. These marks are among our most valuable assets. In addition to our distinctive marks, we own several copyrights and
trade dress rights to our solutions, product packaging and user manuals. We also place significant value on our trade dress, which is the overall image and
appearance of our solutions, and we believe that our trade dress helps to distinguish our solutions in the marketplace.
Furthermore, our employees, contractors and other parties with access to our confidential information sign agreements that prohibit the unauthorized
disclosure of our proprietary rights, information and technology.
Employees
As of December 31, 2009, we had 1,738 total employees, consisting of 922 full-time and 816 part-time employees. Our personnel consisted of 266
employees in sales and marketing, 333 employees
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