When you need an expert with strategic and analytical skills who can provide trademark survey evidence that will strengthen your IP case in New Jersey, Keegan & Donato Consulting offers the expertise and data-gathering capabilities you need.
Keegan & Donato Consulting is a specialty research consultancy and one of the most experienced firms in the field of trademark litigation.
With a combined 30-plus years of experience in conducting consumer research studies, as well as membership in the International Trademark Association (INTA), the American Marketing Association (AMA), the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR), and ESOMAR, the leading global association for market, social and opinion researchers, principals Mark Keegan and Tony Donato offer skills and tools that can help you strengthen your case.
Value of Consumer Research Studies
Surveys are an invaluable tool for brands who want to gauge consumer perception of products or services; measure consumer understanding of contested marketing claims; assess the buying habits of a target market; test the marketplace for a new brand name, logo or concept; and other key marketing issues.
Keegan & Donato Consulting designs, executes, analyzes, and presents the results of IP litigation surveys, such as:
- Likelihood of Confusion
- Secondary Meaning
- Strength of Mark
- Acquired Distinctiveness
- Lanham Act Claims
Why Expert Advice is Valuable
Expert advice can be critical for several reasons, such as making the most of fact discovery, framing discovery requests, and identifying issues to investigate in depositions.
Through survey evidence, an expert can often help establish whether a descriptive mark has acquired secondary meaning, whether competing marks are likely to confuse consumers, whether or not a mark is famous, and whether one brand’s mark is likely to dilute 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. However, consumer surveys must be well-designed and scientifically sound, 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 No. 14-00150-SDD-SCR, Dist. Court, M.D. Louisiana (2014), the court placed “little weight on the (plaintiff’s) survey results for the reason that the survey’s methodology was fundamentally flawed in both its sampling and the questions employed.”
Hiring qualified survey experts, such as Keegan & Donato Consulting, will have a significant impact on whether the court deems your survey results admissible. We consider methodological design among the most critical aspects of designing a consumer research study.
A trademark survey expert like Keegan & Donato Consulting can provide the expertise you need to develop a powerful case strategy in New Jersey. Contact us at (914) 967-9421 to explore our capabilities.