Trademark and Copyright Litigation

Although the law defines a trademark as any word, name, symbol, or device to identify and distinguish a business’ products or services from those of others, a trademark represents much more.  It carries with it the company’s reputation.  When another person uses a trademark that is so similar to a company’s trademark that potential customers are confused or deceived, that person has effectively stolen your company’s reputation.  This can cause significant harm to your company’s bottom line by diverting sales and other business opportunities and by harming your company’s reputation when that person offers or provides inferior products and services.  Swift action must be taken to minimize that harm and restore your company’s reputation.

At Porter Hedges, our litigators represent clients in enforcing or defending trademark infringement and dilution lawsuits in federal and state courts involving trademarks, service marks, trade dress, product packaging, and product configuration (including color claims).  We also have experience in prosecuting and defending oppositions and cancellation proceedings before the U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.  Almost of these lawsuits and proceedings involve consumer survey experts related to likelihood of confusion, likelihood of dilution, descriptiveness, genericness, and fame.  Consumer surveys create a mine field of potential issues that can affect the surveys weight and admissibility.  Our attorneys have experience working with survey experts to address these issues.

Similar to trademarks, if another person is using a domain name that results in potential customers being confused or deceived, our attorneys can help given their extensive experience in domain name disputes under ICAAN’s Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy and under the federal Anti-Cybersquatter Consumer Protection Act.

With regard to copyrights, a company’s copyright portfolio, such as photographs, music, videos, and movies, may be the most valuable assets of the company.  Our team is experienced litigating and resolving copyright disputes on behalf of copyright owners and alleged infringers across a variety of industries.

In today’s digital age and with the proliferation of online content, our copyright infringement litigation team understands that stopping the dissemination of a work – which in today’s environment often occurs when a client’s content is posted online without authorization – can be as important as recovery of damages.  We are well-versed in preparing take down notices under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to have user-uploaded material that infringes their copyrights taken down off of websites by contacting an internet service provider rather than directly contacting the user who uploaded the content.  We have found this to be an effective mechanism to obtain quick relief as a prelude to taking action against the uploader.