All posts by Roberta Jacobs Meadway

About Roberta Jacobs Meadway

Email: [email protected] Tel: +1 215 851 8522 Roberta Jacobs-Meadway focuses her practice on trademark, copyright and unfair competition law, as well as related licensing, and litigation in the federal courts and before the TTAB. An expert in the field of intellectual property law and ethics, she has received many recognitions and awards, including an AV® Preeminent™ rating from Martindale-Hubbell, the Anne X. Alpern Award by the Pennsylvania Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession, and listing by “Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business for Intellectual Property” as one of the leaders in the field of intellectual property law. Jacobs-Meadway has championed the role of women in the legal profession throughout her career and has served on the Pennsylvania Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession since 2008. Jacobs-Meadway earned her law degree from Rutgers University School of Law and her undergraduate degree from Bryn Mawr College.

Avoiding Shoot, Ready, Aim: Cease and Desist Letters and the Streisand Effect

The urban legend says, “If you don’t protect your trademark rights, you’ll lose them.” Like most urban legends, there is a kernel of truth lurking at the base, although the proposition is not literally and universally true.

If mark owners do not enforce their rights against third-party uses of the same or similar marks or names for goods or services, the mark owner’s rights to object to such uses and similar ones can be diminished if not extinguished. This is true particularly when the goods or services are the same as or closely related to those of the mark owner, and when the activities of the parties overlap in geographic area or other market segmentation.

But if mark owners seek to enforce their rights when either the marks or the goods and services are so significantly different that no confusion is likely, they face different risks with a similar result. These include publicizing the third-party use, being unsuccessful in attacking the use, encouraging additional uses and potentially having their rights diminished if not extinguished.

Often mark owners send a cease and desist letter to third parties who use the same or similar marks or names for goods or services. When a cease and desist letter is sent, the typical response is a return letter stating that there can be no reasonable probability of confusion (probability here equating to likelihood, rather than a possibility of confusion) because of the nature and extent of third party use of similar marks on the same and related goods and services, thus demonstrating that the relevant public is not likely to be confused by use of the accused party’s mark. The impact of this response depends on the number and nature of the third party uses that the accused party can find.

However, if mark owners seek to enforce their rights for a mark that is subject to challenge based on a registration that is subject to challenge, they likewis risks the diminishment if not the extinction of their rights. Such extinction of rights can occur based on several different arguments: that the asserted mark is generic for the goods (such as “footlong” for 12” sandwiches); that the mark is deceptive or merely descriptive and has not acquired distinctiveness; that the mark is the configuration of the goods and that the configuration is functional; or that the claim of use was defective and the evidence of use insufficient to support the claim to registration.

Given these scenarios, it looks like mark owners could be damned if they do try to enforce their rights and damned if they don’t. So, what are mark owners to do? That decision should be made by assessing the answers to the following questions and considerations, which fall into two general categories: diligence and identification of options.

Diligence

It’s essential to research all the relevant information by answering these questions. Who has priority? What is the nature and extent of use of each mark? Has there been any confusion? Granted the conditions of purchase trade channels and strength of the senior mark, is there a real likelihood of confusion that is commercially meaningful or a hypothetical “if-then” concern? Is the accused company one that might be a business partner or customer? How vulnerable is the senior mark (or registration) to attack? What counterclaims might be brought against the client? Does the accused party have superior rights in another jurisdiction of interest? How important is the matter to the client? Is the business at issue profitable, justifying the expense of potential litigation? Will the mark be in use into the foreseeable future, will it be phased out in a matter of months, or is it otherwise at the end of its lifecycle?

Identification of options

Sending a cease and desist demand letter or filing a complaint are common remedies used to protect a mark. But there are other approaches worthy of consideration that may be more effective. These include the following: taking no action; communicating with the third-party user by having a business person to business person conversation by telephone or otherwise; or having an initial expression of concern made by in-house counsel to in-house counsel with an invitation to discuss how those concerns might be addressed. On the other extreme, if the conduct is egregious and appears to be deliberate, there is no requirement for a cease and desist letter to be sent. The first communication to the adverse party may be the service of the complaint, with or without a demand for interlocutory injunctive relief.

If, after consideration of all the options, the decision is made to send a cease and desist letter, the next step is to determine what the demand is going to be, how much support will be provided for the demand and what the tone of the demand will be.

In making these determinations it is important to remember that how the message is conveyed will impact the response, which may include a resort by the recipient to social media. This is where the Streisand effect (that is, the capacity of an attempt to shut down a communication to generate even wider distribution of the communication) may come into play. Having a demand letter to cease and desist made public on social or other media by an accused entity seeking to generate public sympathy and support against a “bully” may generate more notoriety for the mark owner’s conduct than the accused party’s mark or product ever would have received, if the dispute had not become public. What this suggests is, first, that the demand be written as if it will be read by the client’s customers, as well as the general public, and second, that if the misuse is likely to be short-lived and little noticed, a different kind of letter may be called for. In the latter instance, the letter will have a less formal and less strident tone, as it is intended to educate and persuade. It’s also important to realize that search engine optimization can address any number of issues without recourse to legal demands.

Generally, the objective should be: first, to provide a factual and legal basis for the claim, especially if the recipient is an individual or small enterprise that may not have done a comprehensive search or may not have any real understanding of trademark law; and second, to demand what is feasible and what the client is entitled to. Overblown demands and demands that cannot reasonably be met are more likely to generate resistance than to secure compliance.

Lee v. Tam and the Registrability of Disparaging Marks

Can a band register their name, “The Slants,” as a mark? Is that name disparaging to Asian-Americans and so barred from registration under the Lanham Act, 15 USC 1052(a)? Can the football team that plays in Washington maintain its registrations for its “Redskins” marks?

During the oral argument at the U.S. Supreme Court on January 18, 2017, the “Redskins” marks were not directly in issue, but there is no doubt that what the Court decides in Lee v. Tam will decide the validity of the “Redskins” registrations, as well as the registrability of “The Slants”.

The oral argument addressed all the key points that have been debated since the Trademark Office first addressed the merits of the “Redskins” and “Slants” cases.

On the one point of most concern to the trademark bar – the overuse of marks potentially considered to be disparaging, the Justices seemed clear that the denial of registration would not preclude enforcement of rights in registered (and potentially unregistered) disparaging marks.

The central question before the Court is whether denying registration implicates the First Amendment if the denial does not burden, restrict or prohibit the use of the subject marks, although the denial precludes reliance on the benefits of registration, which are substantive as well as procedural, and include incontestability barring certain defenses, recordation with Customs to stop infringing imports, statutory damages against counterfeits.

What is notable are the number and variety of the amicus briefs filed. In support of Tam, amicus briefs were filed by: law professors and lecturers such as Floyd Abrams (Yale and Columbia), Eric Freedman (Hofstra), Nadine Strossen (New York Law), and William Van Alstyne (William and Mary); Pacific Legal Foundation; American Center for Law and Justice; Chamber of Commerce. There were amicus briefs filed on behalf of neither party by the American Bar Association and Public Knowledge, and on behalf of a number of members of Congress. And amicus briefs filed on behalf of the petitioner included: the Hispanic National Bar Association, National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, National LGBT Bar Association, National Native American Bar Association and a number of law professors.

The oral argument provided no clear answer as to what the ruling will be. Numerous analogies to copyright law were drawn by Justices Kennedy, Alito and Ginsburg. Numerous questions were posed about the purpose and function of trademarks by Justices Roberts, Stewart and Breyer. The most torturous component of the argument revolved around the distinction that might be drawn between the commercial and the expressive components of a trademark, with John Connell on behalf of Tam submitting that the trademark serves both functions, with the non-commercial component of his client’s mark communicating Asian pride.  Tam himself has been quoted as saying: “We’re fighting for more than a band name; we’re fighting for the right of self-determination for all minorities.”

It is interesting that in such a submission, neither “The Slants” nor the “Redskins” cases offer competent survey evidence to address whether or not the population alleged to be disparaged by the mark in question finds the mark in fact to be disparaging. Justice Stewart noted that the director of the USPTO was relying on internet commentary to support the finding of disparagement. The question is whether such important determinations should be based on such flimsy evidence. And this same concern applies equally to the prohibition on registration of scandalous and immoral marks, a separate provision of 15 USC 1052(a), which was remarked on more than once by Justice Ginsburg. The USPTO has taken the position that if there is a dictionary that identifies the term as “vulgar” (a word that does not appear in the statute), that term is precluded from registration. If the bar to registration of disparaging marks falls, there can be little doubt that the bar to registration of “immoral” marks also falls.

And then the question must also be raised that if disparagement is not a bar to registration, can it be a basis for precluding the use of a mark, such as when a mark is alleged to cause a likelihood of dilution by tarnishment?  How the Lee v. Tam matter is decided, and the breadth of the language employed, will clearly have an impact on more than the question of registration of “The Slants” and ‘Redskins” marks. It should also resolve the uncertainty over the impact of a finding of incapability of registration on the ability to enforce trademark rights under the provision protecting unregistered marks and names from infringement, 15 USC 1125(a).