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Failure to Prosecute Infringers Will LEad to Loss of Trademark Rights

Guest post by: David M. Adler

Article Overview: Generally speaking, trademark rights in the United States arise in the context of use. Use or acts by others which evidence non-use jeopardize those rights and are legally analyzed as “abandonment.” An “abandoned” mark has fallen into the public domain and is free for adoption and use by others. Abandonment can take various forms. This article discusses the failure to prosecute infringers.

Failure to Prosecute Infringers Will LEad to Loss of Trademark Rights

While the failure of a trademark owner to prosecute third-party infringers has been characterized by some courts as evidence of abandonment, the more readily-ascertainable harm is a gradual erosion of a mark’s distinctiveness, e.g. the power of the mark to identify a particular source of good or service. Third-party use causes the mark to become “weaker” because it appears to coexist within an increasingly “crowded field” of other similar marks.

The other harm is “tarnishment,” the mental association of the mark with inferior or offensive products or services. Continued unabated, third-party infringers will eventually cause the mark to lose all strength as a distinctive symbol of source, having the same effect as an abandonment. What’s worse, so weakened, a mark-owner would be powerless stop future infringers, losing any goodwill associated with the mark. Courts, as a matter of policy, have hesitated to hold trademark owners to a strict policy of pursuing every potential infringer: “an owner is not required to act immediately against every possible infringing use in order to avoid a holding of abandonment. *** Such a requirement would unnecessarily clutter the courts.” Wallpaper Mfrs., Ltd. v. Crown Wallcovering Corp., 680 F.2d 755, 766.

How do mark owners protect against third-party use? Monitoring. Trademark monitoring involves periodic policing of State and Federal trademark databases for applications to register marks as well as policing the Internet for actual use. By monitoring Federal trademark application activity, mark owners can properly object to third party registrations during the statutory, thirty-day “Opposition Period.” By monitoring Internet activity, owners can identify and address risks early, before extensive customer confusion can occur and before the third party as invested money to promote the mark, making an early settlement more difficult.

Opposition.

An “opposition” is a proceeding in which one party is seeking to prevent registration of another party's trademark. Under the law, if a party believes that she will be damaged by the registration of a mark, she can file an opposition.

Often, a trademark application is opposed by someone who owns prior rights in an identical or similar trademark. Trademark applications may be challenged on any other substantive requirements for trademark registration, such as descriptiveness, deceptive misdescriptiveness, genericness, functionality, dilution.

Cancellation.

A cancellation is a proceeding in which a party seeks to cancel an existing registration of a mark. Under the law, a person who believes he will be damaged by the registration may file a petition to cancel.

Please feel free to contact us to discuss the scope and availability of the firm’s trademark monitoring services.

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Article Tags: abandonment, application, cancellation, dilution, infringement, opposition, prosecution, registration, trademark



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