How to Police and Enforce Trademark Rights

One of the biggest mistakes we see business owners make is not having a proper enforcement program in place for their trademarks.

Enforcing your trademark is incredibly important because it can drastically shape the scope of the rights that you have in your brand long-term.

When your trademark application is approved by the USPTO, you receive a physical certificate of your registration in the mail. But with trademark enforcement, you don’t have tangible evidence that your money is well spent, so it’s difficult to quantify its worth as a trademark owner.

In this video, founder Josh Gerben dissolves any confusion about how companies should properly police and enforce their trademarks in the marketplace.

1. The first part of any enforcement program is to properly monitor your trademark.
a. Set-up a monitoring service for the federal government’s trademark database to keep an eye on any new filings that are similar to yours.
b. Use Google Alerts to receive emails whenever a website uses your trademark.
c. Frequently check social media for any use of your trademarks outside of your own company.

2. The second part of any enforcement program is to police your trademark in the marketplace.
a. Understand the different types of trademark infringement, including incidental infringement, nefarious infringement, and non-actionable incidents.
b. Enforce your trademark depending on the type of infringement. Examples of enforcement include letters of protest, take-down notices, and lawsuits.

Follow us on social media.
LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/30M3wF9
Facebook: https://bit.ly/3hz5PBz
Twitter: https://bit.ly/2CdAIvc

Founded in 2008, Gerben Law Firm PLLC is a boutique Washington, DC based trademark, copyright and patent law firm. We currently serves clients in all 50 states and from over 30 countries around the world. Founder Josh Gerben opened the firm with the goal of providing big-firm quality legal services to businesses and individuals at affordable prices. In furtherance of this goal, the firm has obtained more than 5,500 trademark registrations for its clients since opening, and has been involved in over 500 trademark enforcement and defense matters.

Visit https://www.gerbenlaw.com to learn more.