Your business’ trademark can carry a lot of value. It signifies your brand, which you’ve probably spent years or even decades building, and it speaks to the quality of goods or services being offered to the market.
But your trademark is only strong and effective if you adequately police it and protect yourself from infringement. Otherwise, consumers might lose faith in your mark, and the goodwill that you’ve built can be quickly destroyed.
How do you identify trademark infringement?
Trademark infringement might seem straightforward, but it’s actually nuanced and complicated.
As you police your marks, you might want to be on the lookout for the following signs of actionable trademark infringement:
- Has someone actually misappropriated your mark?
- If it’s not a direct use of your mark, how similar are the two marks in question?
- Has the mark been used in commerce?
- Is your mark fanciful or arbitrary, or is it merely a description of the goods or services being sold?
- Are the goods or services being sold similar to those that you’re selling?
- Can you demonstrate that consumers are confused by the infringing use of your mark?
- What’s the other party’s intent when using your mark?
- What’s the geographical scope of the two marks’ use?
You can probably see where the answers to these questions are going. If the marks are similar, your mark is strong, the products are similar, and the use of your mark is likely to cause confusion, then you’ve got a solid argument that infringement has occurred. These questions are a huge part of the infringement test.
Do you need help addressing the nuances of your case?
Each of the questions above can result in a highly fact-specific analysis that can be difficult to address. Yet, if you want to build a strong infringement case, then you need to know how to competently address these legal nuances.
That’s why learning as much as you can about this area of the law and figuring out the best way to take legal action is in your best interests.