When you seek highly qualified trademark survey companies to help you develop a powerful strategy for your IP litigation in North Port, FL, consider Keegan & Donato Consulting.
Relying on 30-plus combined years of vast industry experience, proven survey methodologies, and deep operational insight, principals Mark Keegan and Tony Donato deliver expert research, analysis, affidavits, and reports on behalf of plaintiffs and defendants to support their trademark infringement litigation. They have collaborated extensively on cases involving business, marketing, and financial issues.
Our Survey Best Practices
We build many of the industry best practices into our survey designs, including:
- Appropriate universe selection and sampling frame;
- Inclusion of representative, qualified respondents;
- Procedures to minimize potential biases in data collection;
- Objective, non-leading questions;
- Procedures that reduce guessing among respondents; and
- Complete analysis and reporting of survey data.
We employ classic and innovative custom survey designs to suit each client’s needs. Our industry-leading online survey software platform facilitates the programming and execution of advanced survey designs, including complex skip logic and advanced rotation and randomization of questions, answer options, and stimuli.
Is a Survey Really Necessary?
The Lanham Act is the statutory basis for most trademark claims. The issues raised are very suitable for testing through consumer survey research by addressing how consumers interpret and misinterpret names, symbols, and other marks used by businesses in commerce. The resulting evidence can be very persuasive.
Although the Lanham Act does not require litigants to introduce consumer surveys in litigation, many court decisions have drawn adverse inferences when survey evidence is absent and discussed how the absence impacted their decisions.
For example, in Pharmacia Corp. v. Alcon Labs, Inc., 201 F.Supp. 2d 335, 373 (DNJ 2002, the Court noted that “Pharmacia is not legally required to conduct a confusion survey. But under the circumstances of this case, Pharmacia’s failure to conduct any confusion survey weighs against its request for a preliminary injunction. Such a failure, particularly when the trademark owner is financially able, justifies an inference that the plaintiff believes the results of the survey will be unfavorable.”
Likewise, in King-Size, Inc. v. Frank’s King-Size Clothes, Inc., 547 F.Supp. 1138, 1162 (SD Tex. 1982), the Court noted that “Plaintiffs did not present to the Court a survey or any other direct evidence of actual confusion. The Court views these omissions as both suspect and significant.”
How We Can Help
Selecting the correct type of survey for a case requires skill and experience. At Keegan & Donato Consulting, we approach survey design on a case-by-case basis because each case is unique. We work closely with clients to appreciate the fundamental issues driving the case and work to maximize the value of the research evidence to the overall case strategy.
As you evaluate trademark survey companies for your litigation in North Port, FL, call Keegan & Donato Consulting at (914) 967-9421 to find out how our highly qualified team can help.