To explore whether a trademark survey expert could help you strengthen your IP litigation in Florida, get in touch with Keegan & Donato Consulting. We will work within your budget to get you the results 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.
Why Expert Advice is Valuable
Consumer surveys are important in determining whether competing marks are likely to confuse consumers, whether a descriptive mark has acquired secondary meaning, whether a mark is famous, and whether one mark is likely to dilute a competing mark.
Courts are careful to scrutinize these surveys for methodological flaws. Issues surrounding sample selection, interviewer bias, or suggestive wording may cause a judge to give a survey little weight, or deem some or all of the results inadmissible.
For example, in Elliott v. Google, Inc., 45 F. Supp. 3d 1156 – Dist. Court, D. Arizona (2014), 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 Water Pik, Inc. v. Med-Systems, Inc., 726 F.3d 1142, 1144-50 (10th Cir. 2013), you will find a lengthy discussion wherein the Court concludes that the defendant’s survey evidence “had too many methodological flaws to be of any probative value.”
And 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.”
How We Can Help
Keegan & Donato Consulting provides services across the nation to attorneys practicing in federal and state courts, before arbitration panels, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB), the NAD, and other specialty venues, and have been engaged by leading firms, such as Blank Rome LLP in Philadelphia, Arnold Porter LLP in San Francisco, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP in Boston, and Debevoise & Plimpton LLP in New York City.
When you need an experienced expert for a trademark survey that will support your litigation in Florida, you will appreciate the extraordinary expertise of Keegan & Donato Consulting. Get in touch with us at (914) 967-9421 to explore our capabilities.