Protect your brand identity with trademark monitoring

The USPTO obviously prevents conflicting marks from being registered. However, in order to enforce your rights at a larger scale, you need to know when others are using trademark similar to yours. Trademark monitoring gives you that information so you can take action against infringers at the right time to prevent others from taking advantage of your brand value and your customers.

A conflict occurs between two trademarks when one is confusingly similar to another that is already registered. The major factor that determines the chance of conflict is when both the marks are similar with goods/services that are alike. However, a conflict can arise if a mark can potentially create confusion in the market if it sounds similar to an already registered trademark. In some cases, trademarks that may seem similar can coexist if they are unlikely to cause confusion in the market. For example, two trademarks that may seem similar can both be allowed if they are used for products or services that are unrelated, and are therefore unlikely to cause confusion.

While the trademark does give you sole ownership of your intellectual property, it is not necessarily true that others can’t use the mark at all. Someone can use the mark independently provided that they limit its usage to the agreed upon terms or use it in a non-infringing purpose as long as no more of the trademark is being used than is necessary for this purpose. It is important to know that trademark laws only control commercial use of the mark.