It may have been no easy feat to obtain registration for your trademark. At the same time, your trademark may be pivotal to the success of your business venture. For these reasons alone, it is unacceptable when a competitor swoops in and infringes upon your mark. This is when it may be necessary to fight back. Continue reading to learn what types of recovery you may seek in a trademark infringement case and how an experienced New Jersey intellectual property litigation lawyer at The Ingber Law Firm can fight on your behalf.
Under what circumstances must I litigate for trademark protection?
Understandably so, court proceedings are likely the last thing you want to undergo. Yet, if you believe that trademark infringement has occurred, it is pivotal that you litigate it. More specifically, you must fight for trademark protection if you believe the following circumstances to be true:
- You believe that you have priority rights to the mark that are senior to the defendant:
- For example, you may own a federal trademark registration on the Principal Register. This may mean that you have the exclusive right to use the mark nationwide or in connection with the goods/services listed in the registration.
- You believe that the defendant’s mark may likely confuse the minds of consumers about the source/sponsorship of the goods/services:
- For example, you may believe that the defendant’s advertising, marketing, and selling of their mark is confusingly similar to that of yours.
- You believe that the defendant’s mark may dilute the strength or value of your mark:
- For example, you may own a famous mark. This may mean that the defendant’s mark may blur your mark’s distinctiveness or tarnish its image by connecting it to something distasteful.
What types of recovery may I seek in a case of trademark infringement?
If you can successfully litigate your case in court, you may be granted certain remedies. The hope is that these remedies help you recover from the damages that you incurred from the defendant’s acts of trademark infringement. Nonetheless, specific types of recovery you may seek are as follows:
- You may seek the defendant’s profits that wrongfully went to them.
- You may seek compensation for your wrongful drop-off in sales.
- You may seek compensation for the attorney fees and court costs you paid to litigate the trademark infringement.
- You may seek injunctive relief so that the defendant can no longer use the offending mark in question.
- You may seek treble damages if the defendant was found to act in bad faith with the offending mark in question.
In the end, the first step to protect your trademark is to retain the services of a skilled Essex County, New Jersey intellectual property lawyer. So call us at The Ingber Law Firm today.
