3 Tips for Online Retailers to Avoid Holiday Infringement of Their Trademarks

We are all aware that from time to time others may infringe upon your trademarks. When this occurs, whether by accident or on purpose, it is incumbent upon the trademark holder to enforce their trademark rights to stop all such infringement.

If you are an online retailer the holidays is an especially busy time for online infringement.

Why should you care? Because certain types of infringement can lead to the direct loss of sales by consumers being directed to other web sites when they are looking for yours.

Here are a few tips to make sure this seasonal holiday infringement does not ruin your sales this season:

1. Google Yourself. First and foremost search for your business name of trademark-protected goods or services in the major search engines - especially Google.

2. Sponsored Results. Pay close attention to the sponsored results - those results typically on the top, bottom, and in right-hand column of the search results. If any competitor comes up in the sponsored results when searching your company's name or trademark then they may be bidding on your company's name or trademark as a keyword in pay-per-click advertising. Provided you retain rights in your company's name or trademarks such tactics creates something known as initial interest confusion among relevant consumers and may be against the law. If you witness such results such activity you should immediately take action to enforce your rights to eliminate this confusion before it impacts your sales.

3. Organic Results. Don't just stop there, however. Make sure to look for your competitors when you search for your company's name or trademarks in the organic results as well. If you see any pull up their web site and then right click your mouse and select "View Page Source". This will pull up much if not all of the html language behind the web site. After you have done this perform a quick CTRL F search of the html code to see if your competitor has embedded your company name or trademarks in their html code. If they have once again this will create a situation, as above, known as initial interest confusion which is against the law by being a relevant result in organic results when others are searching for your company or trademarks. As always, if you witness such activity you should immediately take action to enforce your rights to eliminate this confusion before it impacts your sales.

What action should you take? Of course that will depend upon the results of the search, whether there is any such illegal or suspected illegal activity, and the actual rights you retain in your company name and trademarks. But if you do unearth the same contact us immediately so that we may be able to stop the same at once before the impact is felt on your holiday sales.

The Trademark Company