In reference to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), “A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol or design, or a combination of words, phrases, symbols or designs, that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others.”

Many companies are proud owners of trademarks that are easily recognizable. These businesses have spent a lot through the years in various branding campaigns to make sure that their trademarks are easily linked with whatever services or products they supply or produce. After all that hard work and investment, many corporations are not too thrilled when they discover that their trademarks are being replicated and used to garner profit by others without a hint of regret.

When a company realizes that its trademark is being illegally used by others, it would commonly contact its intellectual property attorneys or trademark attorneys to handle the situation. The trademark attorneys would initially send a trademark infringement letter to the accused. If that fails to stem the infringement then a trademark infringement litigation would ordinarily be filed. If the trademark infringement litigation is a success, then the plaintiff should certainly expect relief to be awarded besides the stopping of infringement.

There are basically 4 ways to invite a trademark infringement litigation. First of all, a mark can be blatantly infringed. This usually involves pirated goods which are printed and packed exactly like the originals.

Secondly, some culprits are a bit more devious and could possibly make alterations to the mark with the idea to confuse the public and most likely avert a trademark infringement litigation.

Some perpetrators can end up diluting your mark by associating it with other merchandise. For instance, Ferrari is related to speed. A cleaning service may come along and use the mark to indicate fast cleaning service.

And finally, with the absence of any bad intent, a business could use a mark in such a way that it sounds or appears almost the same as the original. This could be due to poor research and commonly affects domain names and tag lines. Even though there was no bad intention involved does not mean their actions are not foul of the law. These violators still risk a trademark infringement litigation.

There are several types of intellectual property infringements beside trademark infringements. Two of the more common ones are copyright and patent infringements. So it would not be too surprising to come across news on trademark infringement litigation and patent infringement notice everyday.

Intellectual property owners should always employ specialist lawyers to address specific cases. For instance, a copyright lawyer should be employed to handle copyright infringement cases.