Why is Policy Governance a registered service mark?
The name “Policy Governance” was chosen to describe the brief set of principles that enable governance to be theory-based and conceptually coherent. When such a paradigm is in wide use, people tend to alter this and that segment so that it loses its coherence; that is, there is a tendency to ‘cherry pick’ and thereby to destroy the soundness of the design, just as altering this wheel or that in one’s watch. The term Policy Governance was registered simply to give the designer a device to prevent dilution. The service mark registration has never meant there is a charge for using the model; it is free to all with appropriate attribution and accurate use.
