Trademark infringements (and defending against them) can be destructive and may drain company resources. Seeking support and expertise from trademark survey companies like Keegan & Donato Consulting will ensure that your Newark, NJ brand has the expertise to address unique questions or facts that are central to the issues in your case and help you quantify damages.
Keegan & Donato Consulting, a specialty research consultancy, is located in Rye, New York. We provide a complete suite of services, including consulting on litigation strategy for both plaintiff and defendant clients, consumer research studies, expert reports, testimony in trademark and trade-dress litigation, testimony at deposition and/or trial, and rebuttal of opposing parties’ surveys when applicable.
Principals Mark Keegan and Tony Donato offer more than 25 years of combined experience and education in consumer-based survey research and data analysis in the context of intellectual property disputes, and follow a solid methodological foundation in survey design, execution and presentation.
A Few of Our Survey Specialties
Keegan & Donato Consulting’s capabilities include state-of-the art survey designs that are probative of the relevant issues in each case; target specific consumer populations with appropriate universe selection and sampling frames; and feature cutting-edge rotation and randomization of hundreds of question types with customizable complex skip and display logic when appropriate.
Consumer Confusion: A principal function of a trademark is to prevent consumer confusion. A well-executed survey can help brand owners and their counsel assess whether or not consumers are confused. Keegan & Donato Consulting measures likelihood of confusion with both standard survey designs and innovative custom surveys.
Secondary Meaning: Ordinarily, descriptive marks are not protectable as trademarks unless they have acquired a secondary meaning. Keegan & Donato Consulting can design a survey to target relevant consumers in your client’s market and help you determine the extent to which they associate a contested mark with one or more sources.
Dilution: Trademark dilution occurs when an infringing party uses a famous mark in a way that tarnishes the mark’s reputation for quality or dilutes its strength by blurring its distinctiveness. Consumer recognition of a famous mark can be directly measured with a survey.
False Advertising: Issues raised in the Lanham Act, such as false advertising or labeling, are well-suited to testing through consumer surveys by addressing the ways in which consumers interpret – and misinterpret – names, symbols, and other marks used by businesses in commerce.
Trade Dress: Like a trademark, trade dress is protectable under the Lanham Act. Conducting a consumer survey can help you gather the evidence to prove whether the trade dress in question has established secondary meaning or is likely to cause confusion in the marketplace.
As a trademark survey company, Keegan & Donato Consulting is confident that trademark attorneys in Newark, NJ will find our litigation support and extensive knowledge of intellectual property issues invaluable. Get in touch with us today at (914) 967-9421 to find out more about our wide range of services.