Trademark Bullying and its Impact on Young Minds

Posted by Unimarks on November 16th, 2019

There is a say in the world of the trademark that ‘the bigger the company, the better the chances’. Normally the magnitude of the company plays a factor in the trademark war. And not many times do the smaller companies prevail in a trademark battle. This mostly the legal power and experience the bigger companies have, which makes them walk over the smaller companies. This is called ‘Trademark Bullying’, and this happens quite a lot to the smaller companies who really don’t understand the concept of laws of trademark registration. This article will help you understand the common ways trademark bullying happens and how despite being an underdog you can still come out victorious.

Larger companies can afford to obtain legal protections that are needed to ensure their competitors don’t steal their logos. Their trademarks will be allegedly protected, and they have a proper system in place to assure that there are not many companies that would possibly infringe any of their rights. Teams are set in place to search for any sort of infringement on websites, online platforms, and stores them respectively. Some companies sell their popular items that are easy to copy. They know it is not possible to detect all the infringing parties, so they will choose their battles very wisely. If a corporation discovers there are three companies that may be infringing on their rights. They will most probably attack the smallest company first by filing a lawsuit or threaten to file a lawsuit, which may be more than enough to scare a small business with very few resources from ever selling that product again. If these claims are actually legit, then is not considered to be bullying, the core reason for obtaining a trademark is to protect the exclusive rights of your mark. Unfortunately, these allegations are often merit-less and are sheer abuse of power. The smaller companies suffer because they generally cannot afford to defend their selves in court against the larger corporation with a strong legal team. However, some companies just refuse to lie over and admit defeat. In fact, trademark bullying has been used as a module of defence in recent Intellectual Property litigation. Essentially, companies are left with the choice to accept defeat from illegitimate, overreaching, complaints and suffer the financial burdens of ceasing to sell their alleged product, or simply take the financial sacrifices and litigate in order to defend these matters in court. 

“So the little guys ever win?”

The answer is they do if their smart. All though it seems difficult when you are stuck in the stampede, it is possible to triumph in trademark litigations with the proper legal counseling and research. It is most important to understand trademark laws first. Trademark is a mark used to indicate the make of one particular person or an institution. A name of a person, or corporation, or any letter, word, device, emblem, figure, seal, stamp, diagram, brand, wrapper, ticket, stopper, label, or  any other mark which is lawfully adopted by him and generally affixed as the article of merchandise to denote that the same as it is imported, manufactured, produced, sold, compounded, bottled, packed or otherwise prepared by him; and the signature or the mark, are similar to the ones used commonly by a painter, sculptor or other artist, upon a painting, drawing, engraving, statute or other work of art, to indicate that the same was genuinely designed or executed by him.

source : http://www.unimarkslegal.com/trademark-registration/trademark-bullying-impact-young-minds/