If you are a trademark attorney in Kansas City who needs litigation support to help you develop a powerful case strategy, Keegan & Donato Consulting can provide the expertise you need.
Keegan & Donato Consulting has developed surveys for plaintiffs and defendants across the nation on issues related to likelihood of confusion, strength of mark, secondary meaning, acquired distinctiveness, dilution, genericness, false advertising, and many other topics within the fields of trademark and trade dress.
With more than 25 combined years of experience conducting and critiquing consumer survey research, we have the ability to design studies that avoid the methodological pitfalls that so often afflict competing research studies.
We are members of in the International Trademark Association (INTA), the American Marketing Association (AMA), the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR), the Association for Consumer Research (ACR), and ESOMAR, the leading global association for market, social and opinion researchers, and offer other skills and tools that can help you strengthen your case.
Why Expert Advice is Valuable
Expert advice can be critical for a variety of reasons, such as in making the most of fact discovery, framing discovery requests, and identifying issues to investigate in depositions.
Primarily through survey evidence, an expert can help establish whether or not a descriptive mark has acquired secondary meaning; whether or not competing marks are likely to confuse consumers; whether or not a mark is famous; and whether or not one brand’s mark is likely to cause dilution to a competing mark.
While nothing in the Lanham Act requires consumer surveys to be introduced in disputes, they can serve as persuasive evidence of whether an advertisement or trademark is likely to cause consumers to be confused or misled. Consumer surveys must be well-designed and scientifically sound, however, or they may be given little weight by the court or partially or completed excluded.
In Elliott v. Google, Inc., 45 F. Supp. 3d 1156 – Dist. Court, D. Arizona (2014), for example, the court deemed the plaintiff’s surveys inadmissible after determining them to be unscientific and poorly constructed. The court also rejected the survey expert as unqualified “to design a survey or to interpret survey results” [see 45 F.Supp.3d 1167-1170].
In Dardenne v. MoveOn.org Civil Action, CIV. A. 14-00150-SDD, 2014 WL 1364854, the court placed “little weight on the survey results for the reason that the survey’s methodology was fundamentally flawed in both its sampling and the questions employed.”
Keegan & Donato Consulting has partnered with leading firms across the nation, including Blood Hurst & O’Reardon LLP (San Diego), Ropes & Gray LLP (Washington, DC), SmithAmundsen LLC (Chicago), and Notaro, Michalos & Zaccaria PC (New Jersey), on litigation surveys that have been entered into evidence in matters involving a broad range of products and services.
Whether you are a trademark attorney in Kansas City or another area of the U.S., litigation support from Keegan & Donato Consulting can help ensure valid and reliable survey results that will bolster your case strategy. Call us today at (914) 967-9421 to find out about our services.