You’ve spent years building your brand, crafting the perfect image, and finally seeing it pay off with brand reach and recognition. Then, one day, you spot a copycat – someone selling similar services with a look that’s suspiciously close to yours.
When another business treads on your brand assets, whether that’s a soundalike name or mimicking your distinctive color scheme, it waters down your brand and weakens your hold on your target market. Trademark enforcement exists to resolve these situations. Let’s walk through how you can protect what you’ve built and stop others from riding on your success.
What is Trademark Enforcement?
The trademark enforcement definition is simple: it’s all the steps you take to protect your brand from copycats and unauthorized use.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) only registers trademarks. Once your trademark registration is complete, the maintenance and monitoring of your trademark falls on you, the owner.
You can do this by manually monitoring new trademark filings and looking out for new businesses in the marketplace operating with a similar mark to yours. Often, big businesses with larger budgets resort to hiring a professional agency to watch for trademark infringements. If you’re a smaller business, you can put alerts on your marks to see when anyone starts trading with a similar mark.
Why is Trademark Enforcement Important?
Not enforcing your mark allows for trademark infringement, which can cause significant damage to your brand.
Trademark infringement can confuse your target audience. Customers may be misled if another brand sells similar products with matching colors or logos. In addition, failing to enforce your trademark can dilute its value and weaken its presence in the market.
Additionally, if you fail to enforce your trademark proactively, it may become harder to take down copycats at a later date: by allowing other businesses to mimic your brand assets, you legitimize such use.
Without trademark enforcement, your brand will be open to these damages. But most importantly, trademark enforcement allows you to protect and reclaim the exclusive use of your marks.
What Does Trademark Enforcement Include?
Trademark enforcement includes a series of steps businesses can take to prevent and protect against trademark infringement. They include:
Prevention
The best defense against trademark theft? Make it clear your brand is protected. Here’s how:
Register your trademark
Don’t leave your brand vulnerable. Although state laws protect against using a business’s intellectual property (brand identifiers), it does not give adequate coverage nationally. Registering your trademark gives you a stronger case if you must legally pursue a trademark infringement. Too many brands skip this step and regret it later.
Maintaining trademarks
The USPTO needs proof every five years that you’re actively using your mark. Miss these check-ins on the 5th and 10th years of usage, and you’ll lose your registration. This is where hiring experts to handle your trademark enforcement comes in handy, as they manage the upkeep of your trademark. You can also use ™ or ® symbols to indicate that a brand identifier has been trademarked.
Trademark Monitoring
Businesses monitor the USPTO filings constantly to find brands trying to register similar trademarks. While internal business staff can handle this, most companies outsource it to professionals. These professionals may advise a trademark opposition if and when necessary and have the legal knowledge to actively enforce your rights.
Cease and Desist Letters
When you identify a business using your brand’s mark (such as a logo, color, or name), the first step to address this situation is to send a cease and desist letter.
A cease and desist letter is a letter to the offending brand, notifying them officially of their infringement, asking them to stop, and, in some cases, requesting monetary compensation for damages incurred.
If the cease and desist letter does not produce the desired result, litigation is usually the next step. But don’t rush to sue. Try sending another notice or two. Legal battles should be your last resort.
Dispute Resolution
Dispute resolution is an amicable way of negotiating between you and the infringing party. Since trademark infringement lawsuits are expensive, sometimes both parties negotiate out of court. The legal representatives of both parties meet and agree.
This agreement may require the infringing party to change its branding and stop using the mark. Depending on the situation and damage the trademark owner has experienced, they might also request financial compensation to cover their losses.
Litigation
When the cease and desist letters fail, you might need to drag them to court. Nobody wants it to come to this, but sometimes it’s your only option.
This lawsuit aims to get the court to issue an injunction to the infringing party, ordering them to stop using the trademark. In addition to an injunction, the court may ask the infringing party to pay monetary compensation, including the legal fees of the trademark owner.
For this, you’ll need an expert trademark attorney who can assess the strength of your lawsuit and advise you throughout the litigation process.
Just don’t expect quick results. These cases move at their own pace – could be months, could be years. Every situation is different. So, get ready and pack your patience if you’re heading down this road.
Wrapping Up
Trademark infringement is a fact of life for many brands, particularly those with growing, recognized brand assets — memorable brand names, powerful logos. Trademark enforcement procedures allow trademark owners to protect their brand.
From registering your trademark to defending it in a trademark infringement lawsuit, trademark enforcement requires the help of professionals.
Ready to protect your brand? Our Trademark Research Service provides the detailed trademark analysis your essential brand assets need.
FAQ:
What is the difference between trademark enforcement and trademark registration?
Trademark registration is a process that gives you legal and exclusive usage rights over your trademark. Trademark enforcement covers all means available for you to protect your legal ownership of your trademark.
What happens if I don’t enforce my trademark?
If you don’t enforce your trademark, other businesses may water down the strength of your trademark, confuse customers and cause losses to your business.
Can I enforce an unregistered trademark?
Yes, you can. State laws consider unique brand identifiers as intellectual property and protect them from theft. However, these laws only hold up in the state where the business is located. The owner cannot pursue any legal action protecting their trademarks in other states. Registering your trademark with the USPTO gives trademark owners nationwide rights and federal protection from infringement.
What are common signs of trademark infringement?
The common signs of trademark infringement include similar packaging and logos, using a trademark in a way that confuses people, using similar logos, marks, or slogans associated with a trademark, and selling knock-offs of the original product
