Dreamware / Work / Naming Matters: Patented Brand Automation Platform
Naming Matters: Patented Brand Automation Platform
John Jansen built Naming Matters, a patented Brand Automation Platform that uses NLP, phonetic analysis, and trademark intelligence to automate the brand naming process — built for the co-founder of one of the four original naming firms in the world.
The Challenge
S.B. Master co-founded Master-McNeil in Berkeley, California in 1988 — one of the four original corporate naming firms in the world. Over nearly three decades, the firm developed names for Apple, PayPal, General Motors, Disney, Cisco Systems, Chevron, AMD, Comcast, and Sun Microsystems. The naming process involved linguistic analysis, trademark searching, phonetic evaluation, and creative exploration — work that was expert-driven, time-intensive, and expensive. A typical naming engagement could cost tens of thousands of dollars and take weeks.
Master wanted to democratise this process. The vision was a software platform that could automate the analytical and research components of brand naming — trademark searching, phonetic similarity analysis, name space visualisation — making the expertise of a world-class naming firm accessible to startups and smaller businesses at a fraction of the cost. Nothing like this existed. Trademark search tools existed, but they were designed for lawyers, not creative teams. No platform combined the creative and analytical sides of naming in one integrated system.
Our Approach
John Jansen designed and built the Naming Matters platform from the ground up. The system combines multiple technical disciplines into a single cohesive product: natural language processing for analysing name candidates, phonetic similarity algorithms for identifying conflicts that aren't obvious from spelling alone, advanced search techniques for querying trademark databases across multiple jurisdictions, and patented name space visualisations that help users understand the competitive landscape around a potential name.
The platform searches and rates trademark results across US filings, EU trademarks (27 countries), UK trademarks, Canadian trademarks, social media handles, and URL availability. Rather than returning raw search results like a traditional trademark database, the system rates and ranks results using algorithms that understand how similar names actually are from a branding perspective — accounting for phonetic similarity, visual similarity, and semantic overlap.
The architecture needed to handle the complexity of real-time trademark intelligence across multiple international databases while remaining fast and accessible enough for non-technical users. The user experience was designed for creative teams and entrepreneurs, not trademark attorneys — making sophisticated brand analysis feel intuitive.
The Outcome
Naming Matters launched as a first-of-its-kind, patented Brand Automation Platform (namingmatters.com). The platform made the analytical capabilities of a world-class naming firm available to anyone — from startups searching for their first brand name to established companies evaluating product naming options.
The system's patented name space visualisation technology gives users an immediate, visual understanding of how crowded or open a naming territory is — something that previously required weeks of manual research by specialist consultants. The platform offers day passes for under $50 and monthly subscriptions at $100 per seat, compared to the tens of thousands of dollars a traditional naming engagement would cost.
By building Naming Matters, John effectively translated 29 years of Master-McNeil's naming methodology — developed through engagements with Apple, PayPal, Disney, and dozens of other major brands — into a software platform that scales without limits. The same expertise that named PayPal is now embedded in algorithms that anyone can access.
Key result
Patented platform, multi-jurisdiction trademark search, clients of parent firm include Apple/PayPal/Disney
Tech Stack
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