A few days ago, a fellow harassed: “Are all Six Sigma programs the same?” No. Some are legal and most are illegal.
The words “Six Sigma” are the trademark of Motorola. This does not apply to any particular “mark”, but to the actual words “Six Sigma”: Trademark Serial Number 74199225; Trademark Registration Number 1813630. It is illegal for other companies or individuals to sell goods or services using the words “Six Sigma”. Trademarks are a means of legally enforcing ownership.
Of course in the fairy land of Six Sigma, anything goes. Six Sigma’s creator, ex Motorola employee, Mikel Harry, a man who lied about his qualifications on his LinkedIn profile, said in his Six Sigma Story: “Six Sigma Champions are con men”. It is NEVER OK to be a con man, in any context. Con men hawk what they like to their gullible victims and illegally apply “Six Sigma” stickers.
Always ask whether the seller of services labelled “Six Sigma” is licensed. That is, that the trademark owner (the licensor) has granted a permit to the third party (the licensee) to commercially use the trademark legally.
The purpose of copyright, patents and trademarks is to protect “intellectual property” ... not that Six Sigma could ever be described as particularly “intellectual”. Harry based the ‘six sigma’ of his Six Sigma on the tolerance in the height of a stack and claimed that this controls the behavior of every process in the world. No wonder Harry said “All you have is smoke and mirrors” and spent 11 paragraphs explaining how to use smoke to “cover areas you want to hide from view”.
In 2017 an attempt was made by a group, primarily of business academics, to formally overturn Motorola’s copyright on the words "Six Sigma". They obviously realized many people are using the words “Six Sigma” illegally. It was to no avail.
In 2013 Motorola renewed its Six Sigma Trademark. “Status: Live/Registered”. There is no avoiding it.
It is interesting that the Six Sigma Trademark denotes, “date of first use” as 1990. This is 2 years AFTER Motorola won the Baldrige Award, contrary to scammers' claims.
So if you are using the words “Six Sigma” to sell goods or services, please check with your lawyer. The best approach is to avoid Six Sigma altogether. There is NEVER justification to turn your back on the great men of quality, Dr Shewhart, Professor Ishikawa, Professor Lewis, Professor Deming, and Dr Wheeler, for the lunacy of Six Sigma's con man.
