SmallBusinessNewz

As with most industries, the legal field has seen a sharp decline in the past year.  Yet one area of law that has seen more activity is intellectual property litigations.  One can only speculate, but my theory is that when business is doing, people were too busy counting their own earnings than to wonder what their competitors were doing.  Now, businesses are looking around to see what their competitors are up to and realizing that some competitors are profiting from their brand.  That being said, I think we should take note of an iconic soft serve ice cream purveyor and their ever vigilant eye on their brand.  According to their attorney, each year they 'crackdown' on ice cream truck imitators and this year was no exception.  The company uses various methods to monitor their brand, compile that list and sue people attempting to infringe on their brand.  After all, it's better to be proactive when it comes to your brand and to assist you with this I am going to outline a few steps that you can take right now to begin doing so. 

1.      Identify your intellectual property.  This seems obvious, but there is so much more than your name or logo.  Are you using particular catchphrases.  Clever slogans?  How about the color and feel of your website, is it something that is unique to your brand?  How about your articles, blogs, etc. are you sure that people are not copying and pasting for their own sites?

2.      Register your intellectual property.  If trademark registration is too costly for you, at this time, perhaps register only the word mark for broader protection.  Copyright registration is a mere $45 and the ROI potential well exceeds that.  You can rely on common law protection, but having your trademark registration avoids any questions of ownership.  Copyright registration will give you statutory damages, otherwise you have to prove actual damages.

3.      Set up alerts.  Using the list of your intellectual property, utilize search engines by setting up alerts.  Once a day, you will get a list of searches based on the alerts you set up.  Also, another great way to monitor the 'chatter' about your business is to set up searches on Twitter and Yelp. There are applications out there that will search Twitter and alert you when your name or product is mentioned.  Yelp will allow you to claim your business so you can see what your customers are saying.

4.      Monitor.  Now that you have outsourced your brand monitoring to technology, sit back and watch the alerts pour in.  Most important, read them.

5.      Join in the conversation!  Reinforce the positive feedback by retweeting, thanking, etc.  Address the negative feedback by talking to the unhappy customer.  Sometimes, it's merely a misunderstanding and hopefully, it's something you can rectify.  Now you righted a wrong and let other potential customers know that you care.

6.      Stop infringement.  If you find that other people or businesses are infringing on your copyright or trademark you need to address that before it goes any further.  Here is where you need another action plan. 

1.      Contact the infringer.  It really could be an honest mistake and most of these cases are handled on first contact.  At this point, I advocate working this out business owner to business owner.

2.      If that doesn't work, make sure you have a cease and desist letter ready.  Staying on top of the matter and sending out notices with consistency shows the person that you mean business.  This might be the time to consult your attorney.

3.      If that goes unanswered, see if a DMCA action would work for you or initiate legal proceedings.