According 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.”

Not surprisingly, many well known companies have trademarks that are easily distinguishable. These organizations have spent a great amount over the years on numerous branding exercises to make certain that their trademarks are easily associated with whatever services or goods they provide or manufacture. After all that effort and investment, many corporations are not too thrilled when they find out that their trademarks are being recreated and used to accumulate profit by others without remorse.

When a corporation realizes that its trademark is being unlawfully used by others, it would usually contact its intellectual property lawyers or trademark lawyers to address the situation. The trademark lawyers would initially send a trademark infringement notice to the accused. If that fails to halt the infringement then a trademark infringement lawsuit can be filed. If the trademark infringement lawsuit is a success, then the plaintiff would probably expect relief to be awarded aside from the cessation of infringement.

There are ordinarily four ways to invite a trademark infringement lawsuit. For starters, a mark can be blatantly infringed. This usually involves imitation merchandise which are labeled and packed just like the originals.

Secondly, some offenders are a little more sly and would most likely make changes to the mark with the idea to confuse the public and most probably avert a trademark infringement lawsuit.

Some perpetrators might end up diluting your mark by associating it with other items. For instance, Ferrari is related to speed. A cleaning company could come along and use the mark to imply fast cleaning service.

And lastly, with the absence of any bad intent, a business may use a mark in such a way that it looks or sounds almost the same as the original. This could be due to poor research and generally affects tag lines and domain names. 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 lawsuit.

There are other kinds of intellectual property infringements aside from trademark infringements. Two of the more common ones are copyright and patent infringements. Therefore it would not be surprising to read news on trademark infringement lawsuit and patent infringement letter everyday.

Intellectual property owners should always employ specialist lawyers to manage specific cases. For instance, a copyright law attorney should be hired to handle copyright infringement cases.