Consider hiring trademark survey companies like Keegan & Donato Consulting to deliver persuasive survey evidence in your Illinois case that will stand up to judicial scrutiny.
Keegan & Donato Consulting is a specialty research consultancy that designs and executes consumer-based surveys for attorneys and their clients across the nation. Principals Mark Keegan and Tony Donato have over 30 years of cumulative experience in the field of consumer research and have extensive testimony experience.
Our firm provides services throughout the nation to attorneys practicing in federal and state courts, before arbitration panels, the TTAB, the NAD, and other specialty venues. We have been engaged by top firms such as Arnold Porter LLP in San Francisco, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP in Boston, Day Pitney LLP in New York City, and Schepisi & McLaughlin, PA in New Jersey.
What We Do for Our Valued Clients
- Design, execute and present results of:
- trademark litigation surveys, including likelihood of confusion, secondary meaning, trade dress, strength of mark, genericness, fame, and others;
- false and deceptive advertising, consumer perception, and other types of marketing surveys;
- Critique and rebuttal of trademark and marketing surveys;
- Damages and forensic economic analyses;
- Expert witness testimony on consumer survey, marketing and economic issues.
Hire an Expert to Avoid Survey Flaws
Surveys can provide powerful and valid evidence, but an overly broad survey that fails to address the key issues in a case, even if based on an accepted methodology, may be deemed inadmissible or given little weight by the Court.
Consider Kate Spade LLC v. Saturdays Surf LLC, 950 F.Supp. 2d 639 – Dist. Court, S.D. New York (2013), in which the Court found consumer survey testimony presented by both parties to be of limited value and afforded the surveys no weight at all in this trademark infringement litigation. The plaintiff’s survey was also found to be poorly designed. The defendant’s survey was determined to suffer from methodological flaws that raised “serious questions about the leading nature of the survey design.”
In Water Pik, Inc. v. Med-Systems, Inc., 726 F.3d 1142, 1144-50 (10th Cir. 2013), there is a lengthy discussion about why the Court determined that survey evidence submitted by the defendant in this trademark infringement and unfair competition case, “had too many methodological flaws to be of any probative value.”
For these reasons, it is important to employ experts, such as Keegan & Donato Consulting, who can:
- conduct surveys with rigorous methodological principles
- document and support the choice of survey questions and sample method
- minimize the possibility of bias
- carefully analyze the data gathered
- support the results with knowledgeable, reliable expert testimony
Next Steps
As you look for trademark survey companies to design and execute reliable consumer research studies to strengthen your Illinois case strategy, get in touch with Keegan & Donato Consulting at (914) 967-9421 to find out how we can help.