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No Take Downs

One of the potential uses Attenalert has is to monitor trademark usage. Indeed, it is particularly suited to that because trademarks tend to be single words or short phrases and Attenalert can discover where they are being referenced online.

Once you own a trademark, it is important to enforce your rights under it otherwise you could lose them. This is particularly the case if your trademark becomes a commonly used word. Companies such as Google and Xerox have this problem because of the popularity of their brand names.

One possible solution is going down the legal route of sending take down notices, also known as cease and desist. Unsurprisingly, this will often scare the recipient into complying but it is not always the best option for that very reason, as the Church of Scientology has recently found out with regards to the leaked video.

A better solution could be to try and work with the site that is (mis)using your trademark to come to some kind of arrangement whereby you can receive a link back from their site but at the same time enforce your trademark usage guidelines. Attributor have posted a useful set of 10 reasons why you should avoid the legal route where possible. It is in relation to copied content but the same ideas no doubt apply for trademarks too.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 22nd, 2008 at 10:04 am and is filed under Legal. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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