Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Protect Against Hardball Trademark Tactics

I have noticed in recent years that business are increasingly unscrupulous about stealing the ideas of other businesses. This is particularly true in the area of trademarks and trade names. I have seen increasing cases in which rival business owners will file domain name registrations and trademark applications in an attempt to steal or preempt the legitimate use of a name by other business owners in the same industry.

I had case in which my client started a small recording company. My client incorporated the business and launched a website. After a few years and a producing a few CDs, she found out that someone had filed a trademark application for the same name. The person filing the trademark application was not using the name and apparently only filed the application to hold the name hostage. When I contacted the attorney for the person filing the application, his attorney informed me that his client would give up his application for money.

Another form of hardball tactics is filing domain name registrations that are similar to one already in use. This is done by registering the same name as .org, .net, or .biz, or using a hyphen in the name.

Of course, one can file lawsuits to remedy these situations but that is very expensive.

I encourage my clients to protect their business names and logos as quickly as possible. File fictitious business names for business names in use. State and Federal trademark applications are the best deterrents. We can even file what are called "Intent to Use" applications if the name is not yet in use but the owner intends to use it within the next one to two years. That application protects the name until the owner is ready to actually use - and it prevents someone from tying up that name by filing the same type of application in bad faith. The time and money needed to take these protective measures is well spent.

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