the Trademark Resource for Start-Ups, Business Owners, Marketing Professionals, In-House Counsel, and Attorneys

June 2017

Trademark Disputes, Litigation Holds, and the Duty to Preserve

June 26, 2017 • Litigation

Picture of a server room with text "trademark counsel's duty to preserve"

The legal principles relating to litigation holds are not trademark specific. But it is clear that the rules requiring a party and its counsel to implement a litigation hold apply equally to trademark infringement litigation. These are rules that a trademark owner and its trademark counsel—both trademark prosecution and trademark litigation counsel—should know. They should know these rules because they are easy to run afoul of and, in fact, most trademark owners and their counsel are not fully complying with litigation hold requirements. Litigation holds are not being implementing early enough (or, in some cases, at all), are not being implemented properly, and are not being monitored for compliance. continue reading→

Disclaimers: Can You Really Disclaim Confusion To Avoid Trademark Infringement?

June 12, 2017 • Basic Trademark Matters

This image consists of a figurine of a man reading a paper standing on fine print (like a disclaimer). The text on the image reads "Disclaimers - Do they prevent trademark confusion?" The image also contains the Trademark Well logo.

After a mini hiatus (due mainly to the INTA 2017 Annual Meeting madness in Barcelona), the Trademark Well blog posts are back on track. But that doesn't mean the impact of Barcelona isn't still being felt. Like in this post's featured image, for example. It's a tip of the cap to all those strange figurines that I saw in souvenir shops across Barcelona. In case you don't know, I'm talking about the Caganer figurines.

Back to trademark law. Let's talk disclaimers. Do they prevent confusion? continue reading→