What is trademark infringement? As a trademark lawyer, I hear the question all the time. Of course, we, as attorneys working at big law firms, we tend to think that everyone understands legal jargon. But they don't.
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Welcome to Trademark Law Radio, a top web resource on issues of trademark infringement, trademark licensing, trademark protection, and trademark registration.
What is trademark infringement? As a trademark lawyer, I hear the question all the time. Of course, we, as attorneys working at big law firms, we tend to think that everyone understands legal jargon. But they don't.
Today on Trademark Law Radio we're going to be talking about the definition of trademark infringement, because before you can send a threat letter or a notice letter claiming that someone else has infringed your trademark, the first thing you need to understand is what is trademark infringement.
So trademark infringement is a violation of your trademark rights, and your trademark rights attach to your company name, your product name, your service name, your brand, your logo, etc. as soon as you start doing business under that brand. Under trademark law, we are in the United States a first to use priority country, meaning that the person who is first to use a trademark in a certain way in commerce and to establish the trademark in commerce is going to be the person who's going to have priority rights over anyone else who comes along and tries to then use the same or similar brand.
So before you can understand what is trademark infringement, the first thing you have to do is understand what is a trademark, right? A trademark is a very important intangible business asset, which is often protected by an intellectual property lawyer, such as myself.
You want to think about it as one of several categories. It could the name above your door, your company name. It could be a product name. It can attach to a service. If you are a lawyer or a law firm, for instance, you don't sell any products. You offer services to the business, and so you could have a service mark, which most people still refer to as trademarks. As long as you're doing business under a particular word or phrase, such as Traverse Legal or Traverse Internet Law, then you have established potentially those words as a trademark.
A trademark lawyer will tell you that if you are the first to use those words or similar words in the market, that you sell your goods and services in, then chances are you're going to have priority rights over everyone else.
Now when someone infringes your trademark, what's happening is they're using a mark which is the same or similar in a way which would cause consumer confusion in the market and make people think, consumers think that someone else was you. So think about trademarks as protecting around words and phrases and around designs. The point here is that trademarks protect more than just the literal spelling of a word. They protect against any use which might be similar, which would be likely to cause consumer confusion. So just because I change the spelling or add a letter or change the design of the logo doesn't mean that I'm not going to be engaged in trademark infringement.
My name is trademark infringement attorney, Enrico Schaefer. Today we've answered the question: What is trademark infringement? 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.
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