All is not done once you get your mark registered, because there is another important obligation that needs to be fulfilled by the applicant and that is Monitoring Trademarks. Trademark monitoring is an act of keeping a vigilant eye on your domain to ensure that no other party is abusing your trademark rights. And if someone is misusing your rights for trademarks then it is important for us to inform the respective patent office like the U.S. PTO. Monitoring Trademarks
After registering a trademark, you should ensure that monitoring newly registered trademarks becomes an important part of your trademark strategy. Hundreds and thousands of new trademarks are added on the USPTO website and hence we need to keep monitoring if somebody is violating our trademark rights. Monitoring Trademarks
Without a comprehensive trademark monitoring mechanism in place, we may be hampering our business goal and missing out on large amount of revenue. With this article, we came up with a comprehensive plan for formulating a trademark monitoring mechanism in place. Monitoring Trademarks
Steps in executing a trademark monitoring plan
Trademark monitoring with U.S. PTO database: United States Patent and Trademark Office is one of the most authentic trademark search databases available in the globe as it offers a user-friendly interface along with various search operators. Viewing its authenticity and reliability a trademark monitoring plan should start with the United States Patent and Trademark official website. However, at the same time we need to emphasize on the fact that in the United States common law is applicable and we must formulate a trademark monitoring mechanism keeping that in the mind.
Using search engines: Search engines have changed the way information is being consumed by people these days. Search engines like Google, Yahoo, Altavista, and AOL can offer a plenty of information to trademark search professionals. Thus a trademark monitoring plan should include checking information on various search engines that can give us some business related information.
Trademark monitoring with HTML codes: There are many occasions when competitors tend to include someone else trademark in their HTML source codes. This is done to take advantage of the reputation of an existing brand to achieve business goal. A business should check competitor’s websites and organic search engine results to ensure that no-body else is using their trademark.
Tracking Sponsored ads: These days brand owners are tricking their competitors by including someone else trademark on sponsored ads. Since these days sponsored ads are being widely used by business professionals it is important to check these sponsored ads for any kind of unlawful uses.
Trademark monitoring with financial disclosure sites: The commerce department of countries like the United States offer much information about businesses that are operating from their jurisdiction. We can search those sites for any kind of relevant information pertaining to business and trademark. Apart from Government financial disclosures, we can also search various third party financial websites like Dow Jones to find relevant business information.
Subscribing to RSS feeds of relevant blogs: RSS feeds of various blogs can be a ready-made way to assess if someone else is using our registered mark. With this, we can assess if someone else is using our trademarks in their blog posts, article posts or any of their important documents.
All we can say is that as a professional company we should keep on monitoring trademarks so that no third party can abuse your trademark rights. Monitoring Trademarks