Trademark owners must act quickly to prevent harm. The best strategy involves contacting the infringer and demanding violations cease. Engaging a trademark attorney is recommended. Cease and desist letters are effective. Registering trademarks is essential. Trademark laws vary, and not all uses are actionable infringements.
When a trademark is infringed or violated, the trademark owner must act quickly to prevent the trademark from being harmed. The best strategy for handling a trademark infringement involves two steps. First, the trademark owner must contact the infringer and present evidence that the infringer’s actions are unlawful. Second, he must demand that the violations cease and prepare a violation lawsuit, if necessary. Sometimes trademark owners can make claims themselves, but it’s usually best to engage a trademark attorney who is familiar with local trademark infringement laws and procedures.
Trademark infringements can come in many varieties. In the most egregious circumstances, one party uses another’s brand name to market very similar products, effectively stealing customers and misleading the public. More often than not, trademark infringements involve the misuse of a trademark in advertising, online links, and Internet domain names. The sooner a trademark owner becomes aware of a trademark infringement, the sooner he can bring it to an end. Effective monitoring and management of trademarks is essential to prevent trademark infringement and infringement.
Most of the time, all a trademark owner needs to do to end a trademark infringement is send a cease and desist letter to the person responsible for the misuse. A cease and desist letter has three basic parts: (1) it establishes the superior rights of the trademark owner; (2) identify the perceived violation; and (3) request an end to the misuse. Termination and waiver letters are often written by attorneys and usually threaten legal action if no fines are made.
Almost every country in the world has a trademark law and a system for registering and contesting trademarks. In the United States, trademark rights are automatically attributed to words, phrases and symbols used to identify the origin of something. Trademarks can also be registered federally. Automatically registered, or ‘common law’, trademarks are usually difficult to prevent from being infringed as they are not registered anywhere and competitors may claim they are unaware of them. If the infringed trademark is a common law trademark, the first thing the proprietor should do is register it.
Whether the trademark infringement occurs on a website or within a specific web service, such as an online store or search engine advertising program, dealing with a trademark infringement is often as easy as filling out an online form. Many larger web services deal with trademark infringement allegations on a regular basis and have streamlined the approach to resolving them.
Depending on the strength and value of the infringing trademark, talking to a trademark attorney might be a better strategy than trying to handle the infringement yourself. Trademark attorneys, especially those who focus their practices on trademark infringement, have usually tested strategies for attacking infringements. Lawyers are also familiar with local trademark rules and can advise trademark owners whether perceived infringements are actually violations in the eyes of the law.
It’s important to keep in mind that not all uses of another’s trademark are actionable infringements. Trademark laws vary by country, but US trademark law provides exceptions for nominative use, fair use, and other non-infringing uses of a trademark. Just because someone mentions or uses your trademark doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve infringed it. Researching applicable law and its exceptions or speaking with a lawyer before taking action is a good way to save time and resources in pursuing legitimate violations.
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