Overview
The entire goodwill of your company is reflected in your trademarks and brands. In a competitive global economy, establishing and maintaining a strong brand identity is critical. Many of the world’s most iconic brands rely on our firm to develop, protect, and commercialize their valuable trademarks and brands.
Companies in every industry from jurisdictions worldwide turn to our more than 30 attorneys dedicated to trademark and branding. As a client, you also derive an advantage from our culture of stability, cohesion, and collaboration, which assures that you always have the team with the best legal skills and the most knowledge of your business and industry available to you.
Client industries include:
- Consumer products such as sporting goods, apparel, cosmetics, toys, and food and beverages
- Financial and insurance services
- High tech including semiconductors
- Medical devices and pharmaceuticals
- Automobiles
- Software and hardware
- Cleantech
Domain Name and Website Content Disputes
Having handled civil litigation and Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) proceedings for a wide variety of clients, we have earned an international reputation both in domain name disputes and in the protection and enforcement of IP rights in website content.
Our experience encompasses:
- Audits
- Procurement and policy development
- Policing, investigation and effecting takedowns of protected subject matter from Twitter, Facebook, Google and other social media platforms
We help clients develop, purchase, maintain and manage their domain names. We enforce and defend claims under the Anti-Cybersquatting Prevention Act, Trademark Act, Copyright Act and related statutes pertaining to domain names and website content issues. We routinely represent clients before the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), National Arbitration Forum (NAF) and other domain dispute arbitration administration centers. We coordinate matters involving country-code top-level domains worldwide, wherever our clients do business.
International Trademarks
Our attorneys have extensive international trademark filing experience and are supported by a dedicated staff that helps ensure the rapid and cost-effective resolution of all matters. Our team of attorneys, paralegals and other personnel are familiar with the distinct legal, language, and cultural factors that affect the filing process in such places as China, Japan, Europe, India, Mexico, and South America. This enables a streamlined foreign filing process.
In addition, clients gain an advantage from our network of more than 300 trusted foreign attorneys and trademark agents selected for their deep understanding of local jurisdictions and high level of advice and service. We are able to understand how your international filings fit within your overall corporate goals and can quickly identify and avoid any potential registration problems through such actions as negotiating licenses, consent or co-existence agreements, acquiring rights or bringing appropriate challenges to third-party registrations.
Trademark Searching, Registration and Enforcement
Quickly and accurately establishing a trademark is often pivotal to the success of any new company, product or service, allowing it to claim a meaningful position and competitive advantage in the marketplace. We provide the due diligence support necessary for you to acquire trademark rights and other IP assets, and negotiate trademark licenses and coexistence agreements.
We offer built-in efficiency via docket specialists, international specialists and research services solely devoted to trademarks. We also maintain an encompassing in-house educational program that ensures our entire staff is conversant with relevant case law and emerging issues in the U.S. and abroad. Overall, you will benefit from our practical and cost-effective counsel, which takes into account your business goals, internal considerations, budget, and the value placed on a mark or project.
Trademark and Unfair Competition Litigation
Clients know that our litigators will advocate for their rights from initial complaint through appeal. Our litigation experience covers claims of counterfeiting, trademark infringement, trade dress infringement, false advertising, unfair competition, rights of publicity, domain name disputes, and related state law claims.
We routinely handle oppositions, cancellation and concurrent use rights; continually evaluating the claims, defenses, evidence and merits of each case in light of our client’s strategic and business goals.
Representative Experience
Monster Energy
Our team has managed Monster Energy’s worldwide trademark portfolio since 2004, and continues to handle all aspects of Monster Energy’s portfolio, including management, protection, and enforcement. In 2021, we helped Monster Energy win $175 million in one of the largest ever monetary judgments for trademark infringement.
Masimo Corporation
In March 2022, we secured a court ruling that Masimo Corp.’s former CTO Marcelo Lamego misappropriated multiple Masimo trade secrets, breached his fiduciary duty of loyalty to the Masimo affiliate, and violated his employment agreements by keeping confidential information and documents. The Court ordered Lamego to abandon at least 12 patent applications containing Masimo’s trade secrets and to return all Masimo confidential information.
lululemon
Leading apparel maker lululemon was sued for trademark infringement by the owner of a trademark registration for the ALIIGN mark for apparel. We won summary judgment, and the Court found no likelihood of forward confusion, reverse confusion or initial interest confusion between plaintiff’s registered mark and lululemon’s accused mark. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court.
Big Funny
Metamorfoza alleged that Big Funny’s use of the name “Museum of Illusions” at two museums infringed Metamorfoza’s trademark rights. Metamorfoza, using a franchise model in the United States, claimed rights to the name, even though Big Funny was first to use it in the United States. We won a transfer for Big Funny to the Central District of California.
BlenderBottle
We have developed a successful worldwide patent and trade dress enforcement program for BlenderBottle. We have enforced BlenderBottle’s patent, trademark, and trade dress rights, including dozens of agreements where third parties have agreed to cease sales of the infringing products and pay a settlement amount. We have represented BlenderBottle in enforcement matters in the U.S., E.U., and Russia.