Trademarks

Protecting the Goodwill Your Business Generates

• Your business identity, product name and goodwill are valuable assets – and like physical assets they must be protected against those who would steal them.
• Others who use the same name, such as counterfeiters and cybersquatters are attempting to profit from your hard work. Unless you register your trademarks, it can be difficult to stop unscrupulous infringers who take your good name.
• Likewise, choosing a new business or product name without doing a trademark search is a high-stakes gamble. You may invest a lot of capital and years of effort only to receive a nasty cease and desist letter demanding that you change your trademark, all your marketing products, and your domain name – thus forcing you to throw away all your established goodwill. That’s a sizeable risk that can easily be avoided.

Selecting the Right Trademark

Consider both appeal AND availability. Selecting a good trademark means it is pleasing in both sight and sound, but also available for use and enforceable under the trademark laws. Our trademark lawyers work with you to navigate the trademark selection process and will conduct and analyze trademark searches to establish the availability of any name, logo, design or color that you choose as your trademark. It’s a necessary foundation for any serious enterprise.

Registering Your Trademarks

Know your market boundaries. Your trademarks need to be registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Sometimes international registration may be necessary to take advantage of the protection provided by the trademark laws. You can trust that our experienced trademark attorneys will properly file your trademark applications in the appropriate filing offices and see the applications through to complete the registration process.

Protecting Your Trademarks

Stop infringement BEFORE it eats into your profits. In today’s technological world almost anything can be duplicated inexpensively. A successful trademark must be monitored to prevent use by unauthorized third parties, possibly producing counterfeits. Milord & Associates offers a trademark watch service that quickly notifies us of possible unauthorized use of your mark by others. When discovered, we can file an infringement lawsuit seeking a preliminary injunction to protect your rights and stop the knockoffs before they affect your market share.

Prevent trademark disputes. Additionally, if another party is trying to register a trademark that is similar to yours, we can file opposition or cancellation proceedings with the USPTO. This course of action is much preferable to a later discovery of a competing use that may have already resulted in brand confusion in the marketplace.

Trademark Litigation

Develop a strategy that achieves your business goals. In every lawsuit your overall business interest must be at the forefront, and that determines the litigation posture that we will take. When cease and desist notifications are not enough, our experienced trademark attorneys can file infringement lawsuits in Federal and State Courts to prevent your competitors from using your business name and trademarks on similar products. Obtaining a preliminary injunction against trademark infringers can be very effective.

“Evict” Cybersquatters and Typosquatters. We have also successfully used the trademark laws to control cybersquatters, those who would use website domain names intended to confuse the public, and subsequently offer the site for sale to you, which amounts to extortion. Similarly, we may be able to prevent typosquatters from using a URL similar to your domain name but which contains a misspelling, for the same purpose of confusing the public or profiting from your marketing efforts. For these our clients rely on our extensive experience in ICANN arbitration proceedings.

Defend against litigation. We can also defend our clients against trademark infringement suits. With our experience, the actions taken may potentially invalidate your competitors’ claims, prove non-infringement, minimize any liabilities, or permit negotiation of a favorable settlement so your business may proceed. We may even be able to secure insurance coverage under commercial liability policies to pay attorneys’ fees and settlement payments.

Learn more about protecting your trademarks and valuable goodwill. Contact our intellectual property lawyers for a consultation today.