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Is There A Time Limit For Enforcing My Trademark?

Formally, no. Federal Trademark Law — named The Lanham Act — doesn’t specify a formal time limit for making your trademark infringers stop their naughty behavior.

As a general legal principle, however, courts don’t like it when someone “sits on their rights.” Courts have an interest in the speedy resolution of disputes, and as a matter of fairness to the defendant, they want complainants to bring lawsuits in a timely fashion to protect the rights of all the litigants.

It’s hard to prove what you did or didn’t do if a lot of time passes between the time one discovers a trademark infringement, and then acts to stop that infringement. For defendants, evidence of what they did or didn’t do also becomes “stale” with the passage of time. So it’s better to enforce your trademark rights sooner rather than later.

Most federal courts will look at the statute of limitations for similar state law claims such as unfair competition in deciding what the statute of limitations is for your federal trademark claims. Most states have a four-year statute of limitations for claims of unfair competition.

The best thing is to begin enforcement as soon as you discover the trademark infringement. Typically this enforcement starts with a letter from your trademark attorney, notifying the other party of the infringement, and demanding that they cease and desist the naughty behavior. Most of the time, this works if you have a trademark registration.

Your trademark registration is presumptive proof of your ownership of the trademark, and most infringers will stop their infringement when presented with this evidence that you own the trademark .

If you don’t have a trademark registration, infringement becomes harder to fight, because you don’t have evidence that you are the legal owner of the trademark. Without a federal trademark registration, all you can say is a wimpy, “Hey, I was using that first!” but you don’t have any formal trademark registration to back up your claims. This means that you may have to end up suing to enforce your trademark rights.

You’re in a much better position to assert your trademark rights with a trademark registration, which is why I strongly recommend that all business owners register their trademarks for their most important core brands. A trademark registration is conclusive proof of your legal ownership of the trademark, and is a powerful tool to make infringers stop their infringement. A trademark registration makes trademark enforcement much easier, because you can prove what your trademark is, when your use of the trademark began, and what goods and services you’re using the trademark on.

Having this proof on the trademark certificate means that you don’t have to prove those things in court — they are presumed to be correct. Your infringer will have to prove otherwise, and that’s an uphill battle for them. A federal trademark registration is an important tool for fighting trademark infringement, because it puts the entire world on notice of your trademark rights.

It’s also much less expensive to register your trademark than it is to litigate over your trademark rights. Trademark litigation is tens of thousands of dollars, and trademark registration is a tiny fraction of that. So please, be smart, and register your trademarks!

Book a consultation with attorney Angela Langlotz to discuss a trademark issue. Talk with her for 15 minutes and discover if a trademark is right for you. https://talk.trademarkdoctor.net/15

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