If you are involved in an intellectual property dispute in Illinois that requires a trademark survey expert, consider Keegan & Donato Consulting. We offer 30-plus years of combined experience in consumer research studies and have served the nation’s top law firms.
Keegan & Donato Consulting specializes in a wide range of trademark and trade-dress analyses and surveys, including:
- Likelihood of Confusion
- Secondary Meaning
- Strength of Mark
- Acquired Distinctiveness
- Lanham Act Claims
We can also help you:
- Analyze the economic, financial or technical complexities of your case;
- Assess different case strategies;
- Determine which deposition questions to ask;
- Prepare a testifying expert for deposition and trial;
- Critique potential weaknesses in an adversary’s survey evidence in a rebuttal report.
Our research is focused on collecting empirical data from relevant consumers through methodologically-sound, scientific, industry-accepted principles of survey research.
The real-world results we have collected have provided our clients a foundation for presenting fact-based evidence in support of their positions.
How a Qualified Expert Can Help
Trademark surveys are highly vulnerable to criticism, and courts may discount all or part of a survey if they find it has a flawed design or methodology or was conducted by an unqualified expert.
In THOIP v. Walt Disney Co., 690 F.Supp.2d 218 – Dist. Court, SD. New York (2010), for example, the plaintiff in the dispute argued that its mark had been infringed by two lines of T-shirts of the Walt Disney Company. Each side argued that the other’s consumer confusion survey was not methodologically sound, rendering it and the accompanying testimony inadmissible.
The Court accepted Disney’s survey evidence but determined THIOP’s survey to be inadmissible because it “did not sufficiently approximate the manner in which consumers encountered the parties’ products in the marketplace, which severely diminished the reliability and probative force of the survey” [see 690 F.Supp.2d 240].
Don’t Let Flawed Surveys Damage Your Case
A flawed or defective consumer survey will have a significant impact on your client’s case. Hiring highly qualified experts, such as Keegan & Donato Consulting, can help establish whether or not competing marks are likely to confuse consumers; whether or not a descriptive mark has acquired secondary meaning; whether or not a mark is famous; and whether or not one brand’s mark is likely to cause dilution.
Keegan & Donato Consulting offers extraordinary expertise in the field of consumer research studies and our work has been admitted into evidence in state and federal courts, at arbitration, the NAD, and to the TTAB. Principals Mark Keegan and Tony Donato also have extensive testimony experience.
Most of our consumer research studies cost between $30,000 and $80,000 to complete, with $55,000 being the most typical cost. We work on a fixed rate or hourly basis depending on your needs and will work with you to design a survey that is both reliable and within your budget.
Whether you need a trademark survey to strengthen your Illinois case or an expert to critique an opponent’s study, experienced companies like Keegan & Donato Consulting can help. Get in touch with us at (914) 967-9421 to learn more.