by Traverse Legal, reviewed by Enrico Schaefer - September 4, 2012 - g. Trademark Infringement on the Internet
Trademark infringement on the Internet and the World Wide
Web is rampant. There is such a complete explosion of trademark infringement on
the internet as a result of the registration of domain names, or the use of
trademarks on web pages in order to divert customers from the rightful
trademark owner into a competing site or a scam site or a site that has ads up
on it.
Welcome
to Trademark Law Radio, a top web resource on issues of trademark infringement,
trademark licensing, trademark protection, and trademark registration.
Trademark infringement on the Internet and the World Wide
Web is rampant. There is such a complete explosion of trademark infringement on
the internet as a result of the registration of domain names, or the use of
trademarks on web pages in order to divert customers from the rightful
trademark owner into a competing site or a scam site or a site that has ads up
on it.
My name is Trademark Infringement Attorney Enrico Schaefer,
and today we're going to be talk a little bit about the problem of trademark
infringement on the Internet. Because it is so easy to put up a web page,
because it is so easy to register a domain name, because it is so easy to
upload content to third-party websites, it is really easy to infringe
trademarks. So if you have a trademark and hopefully it's registered with the USPTO,
and you've protected your name, slogan, or logo in a way which gives you the
leverage you're going to need in order to potentially send a trademark
infringement cease and desist letter at some point down the line.
Hopefully, you've done those things. But, even if you've
done those things, the next issue you're going to face is, if you are a company
with a famous name or brand; or even if you are a business that has a less than
famous name or brand that's trademark protected, which is attacked by a
competitor or an angry customer, the next thing that you're going to see is
that trademark infringement can happen to you, and it can really hurt your
business. It can deflect your customers from coming to your website, hiring
you, or buying your goods and services.
So if you're a famous brand, you're going to find that
trademark infringement is almost absolutely going to be an institutional part
of your business process. You're going to have to deal with the fact that other
people are trying to use your name or brand in a way which infringes your
trademark. And if that's the case, you've got to put together a comprehensive
strategy, which not only identifies who's infringing your trademarks by the
registration of domain names that are typographically or phonetically similar,
who is using your trademark on Amazon.com, Buy.com, and some of these other
e-commerce retail portals? Who is using your trademark on web pages in order to
pretend that they are you or that you've endorsed them in some way? And what
you will find is that there are lots of problems out there, lots of fires to be
put out.
How do you now deal with the plethora of issues that you're
facing in an online world? It's all about prioritizing and identifying the
problems and trying to attack them in a way that provides return on investment.
Now, I always tell clients who ask, and any good trademark infringement lawyer
will tell you, that your trademark has value as intellectual property, also
known as IP. So your IP or your intangible assets, which includes all the
things that you can't touch or see or feel. They may involve your trade
secrets. They may involve your confidential information. It could be your contract
rights. It certainly will be your trademarks and your copyrights. It could be
all of your goodwill associated with your business name or brand. These are the
types of things that comprise your IP.
If you protect your trademark by monitoring for infringement
and putting a program in order to deal with folks who are infringing your
trademark, you'll be able to provide that file of information to anyone who
wants to value your business down the line, let it be a bank or a potential
investor or someone that wants to buy your company. You need to be able to show
them that not only do you have a lot of good will, but you've protected the
brand and the name by registration of the trademark and protection of the
trademark in commerce. You can double the value of your business as a result of
these types of activities. So it always makes sense to have a program because
you are going to get value out of that. But you don't have to put out every
fire in the world. You don't have to stop every person who is infringing your
trademark. You do have to be able to show a concerted effort to identify and
deal with problems of trademark infringement on the Internet.
Now, when it comes to the World Wide Web, there are lots of
tools that you can use into order to identify potential trademark issues, such
as Google alerts where you set up a Google alert for your trademark or brand
name in order to get back information about every place on the web where your
brand name or trademark are being used. That can provide you an awful lot of
information, sometimes too much information. A good lawyer will understand how
to use these software tools in order to call the information, in order to
understand which items are truly problems and which items are truly not
problems.
There are also various systems that will tell you when
domain names become available that are similar to your brand or when someone
has registered a domain name which is similar to your trademark. You want to be
in control of that and understand where people are trying to siphon off your
traffic. There's something called direct navigation, where a consumer actually
goes to the browser bar of your web browser and types your URL or web address
in directly. And on a percentage basis, they will sometimes mistype your trademark,
brand, name by accident because of poor typing skills or otherwise, and they'll
come up to some other site because that other site, if someone has registered a
domain name for that typo and is putting up ads which compete directly against
your business on that web page, it's called a parking page.
So a good trademark attorney, who understands Internet law
and the World Wide Web, will be able to with the monitoring aspect of your
activities. That trademark lawyer will also be able to help you understand
which ones are costing you the most money, which ones are generating the most
traffic, which ones are the most direct attack on your trademark and,
therefore, be able to make good, solid legal recommendations. Which ones should
receive notice letters, which ones should receive threat letters, which ones
need to have a lawsuit filed against them for trademark infringement. So these
are the types of things that you want to be thinking about. Again, you don't
have to deal with every single problem that arises and you're going to have to
make intelligent business decisions about trademark protection on the Internet.
My name is, Trademark Lawyer, Enrico Schaefer. I hope you learned something
today, and we'll see you next time.
You have been listening to Trademark Law Radio. Whether you are facing a trademark
infringement, licensing, monitoring or trademark registration issue, we have a
trademark attorney ready to answer your questions
As a founding partner of Traverse Legal, PLC, he has more than thirty years of experience as an attorney for both established companies and emerging start-ups. His extensive experience includes navigating technology law matters and complex litigation throughout the United States.
This page has been written, edited, and reviewed by a team of legal writers following our comprehensive editorial guidelines. This page was approved by attorney Enrico Schaefer, who has more than 20 years of legal experience as a practicing Business, IP, and Technology Law litigation attorney.
