Fitch Even helps companies of all sizes—from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies—manage and protect their brand portfolios. Our extensive experience in all commercial areas concerning trademarks and trade dress often begins with counseling clients on branding strategies and the initial selection of a mark or design, conducting extensive trademark availability searches, and providing opinions. That process can include counseling related to word marks and logos as well as assessing trade dress rights in product configurations, packaging, and business decor. We then prepare and prosecute trademark applications in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), maintain trademark registrations, and police the infringement of trademark rights.
Overcoming Registration Challenges
With a team that includes a former USPTO Trademark Examining Attorney, we have extensive experience navigating the registration process with the USPTO. This experience allows us to frequently overcome substantive refusals that arise during prosecution, resulting in a high success rate of obtaining registrations for our clients. We also pursue ex parte appeals, when necessary, and have often secured reversal of refusals by trademark examining attorneys, resulting in registration of our clients’ marks. Similarly, in the U.S. and other countries, we are highly skilled in the unique procedural requirements of opposition and cancellation proceedings, which arise when other companies object to the registration of our clients’ marks, or when other companies attempt to register marks that infringe our clients’ rights. Fitch Even attorneys have actively participated in hundreds of oppositions and cancellations around the world to protect our clients’ trademark rights.
Global Trademark and Brand Protection Strategies
We often work with foreign law firms to register, maintain, and enforce brands in 220 or more countries, including even the smallest and most-obscure jurisdictions. Our global capability is especially important as the proliferation of social media outlets and online distribution channels makes protecting brand identity a key business priority.
Trademark Portfolio Management and Policing
Fitch Even manages portfolios of many hundreds of marks and assists our clients in aggressively policing and exploiting their marks around the world. This includes working with U.S. Customs to register trademarks and prevent infringing imports from being brought into the United States. We also provide our clients with day-to-day advice regarding potential infringement of their trademarks, as well as avoidance of competitor’s trademarks. We use trademark databases to monitor infringing uses or attempted registration of our clients’ trademarks and domain names.
Litigation and Protection of Brand Identity
Fitch Even lawyers handle cases in state and federal courts involving claims of:
- trademark infringement
- counterfeiting
- trade dress infringement
- dilution
- unfair competition
- false advertising
Combining our litigation experience with our leadership in trademark prosecution and our seasoned advice on brand development and licensing opportunities, Fitch Even protects the brand identities of clients at every stage of their development and use worldwide.
Case Studies
Client: The world's largest manufacturer of garage door openers, under the Liftmaster™ trademark
Problem: A competitor sought to register the trademark “Lynx Master” for its own electronic door openers.
Solution: Fitch Even launched an opposition proceeding at the USPTO to reject the competing mark due to the likelihood of consumer confusion between the two marks.
Result: The USPTO ruled in our client’s favor, citing the extensive use and promotion of its mark, the similarity between the two competing marks, the use of the marks at issue on identical goods, and the similarity between the parties’ channels of trade and customers—all arguments that we had advanced on behalf of our client.
