Consumer survey companies, such as Keegan & Donato Consulting, can help IP litigators in Pittsburgh, PA, establish how consumers view their clients’ trademarks and the products and services with which those marks are associated.
Keegan & Donato Consulting is a specialty research consultancy and a leading firm in the field of trademark litigation. The firm provides expert research, analysis, affidavits and reports on behalf of plaintiffs and defendants throughout the nation, and has collaborated extensively on cases involving business, marketing, and financial issues.
Our Specialties
A well-designed consumer research study can provide empirical evidence on the issue of whether an alleged trademark infringement is having a real-world impact on consumers. Our firm specializes in a wide range of trademark and trade dress analyses and surveys, including:
- Likelihood of Confusion –We measure likelihood of confusion through accepted survey designs and by crafting innovative custom surveys to ascertain whether or not consumers are confused by a party’s use of a contested mark.
- Secondary Meaning –We can help to strengthen your case strategy by designing a study to target relevant consumers in your client’s market and find out how they perceive your client’s brand.
- Acquired Distinctiveness– Consumer research data can assist in proving that your client’s mark has achieved acquired distinctiveness and is not likely to cause confusion about the origin of goods or services associated with the mark.
- Dilution –Consumer recognition of a famous mark can be measured directly by a survey. Because there are a variety of approaches to substantiating a claim of dilution, we work closely with clients to understand the fundamental issues of their unique cases.
- False Advertising –Issues raised in the Lanham Act, such as misleading advertising or labeling, are particularly well-suited to testing through consumer research by addressing the ways in which consumers interpret—and misinterpret—names, symbols, and other marks used by businesses in commerce.
Choose a Qualified Expert
Consumer research surveys are highly vulnerable to criticism, and courts may discount all or part of a survey if they find it has a flawed design or methodology or was conducted by an unqualified expert.
In THOIP v. Walt Disney Co., 690 F.Supp.2d 218 – Dist. Court, SD. New York (2010), for example, the plaintiff in the trademark dispute argued that its mark had been infringed by two lines of T-shirts of the Walt Disney Company. Both sides argued that the other’s survey concerning consumer confusion was methodologically unsound, rendering the survey and accompanying testimony inadmissible.
Disney’s survey evidence was accepted by the court, but determined THIOP’s survey to be inadmissible because it “did not sufficiently approximate the manner in which consumers encountered the parties’ products in the marketplace, which severely diminished the reliability and probative force of the survey” [see 690 F.Supp.2d 240].
Keegan & Donato Consulting offers extraordinary expertise in the field of consumer research studies and our work has been admitted into evidence in state and federal courts, at arbitration, the NAD, and to the TTAB. Principals Mark Keegan and Tony Donato also have extensive testimony experience.
It’s important to hire experienced companies like Keegan & Donato Consulting to deliver persuasive consumer survey evidence in your Pittsburgh, PA case that will stand up to judicial scrutiny. Get in touch with us at (914) 967-9421 to learn more.