When you need the services of a highly qualified trademark survey expert for IP litigation in Michigan, consider Keegan & Donato Consulting. Our experience in survey design and execution, consumer research, analytical expertise, and the formulation of case strategies in complex litigation can help law firms and their clients prevail.
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, and to the NAD and the TTAB. Principals Mark Keegan and Tony Donato also have extensive testimony experience.
As a specialty research consultancy, we are members of the International Trademark Association (INTA), ESOMAR, the leading global association for market, social and opinion researchers, and the American Marketing Association (AMA). Mr. Keegan is also an AMA-designated Professional Certified Marketer.
Is Your Survey Expert Qualified?
Employing a qualified survey expert, such as Keegan & Donato Consulting, will have a significant impact on whether the court will deem your survey results admissible.
Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence requires experts to have scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge that will help the court understand the evidence.
An overly broad survey that fails to address the key issues in a case, asks leading, suggestive or ambiguous questions, samples from the wrong geographic area, etc., even if based on an accepted standard methodology, may be deemed inadmissible by the court or given little weight.
In Pinterest, Inc. v. Pintrips, Inc., Case No. 13-cv-04608-HSG, Dist. Court, N.D. California (2015), for example, the plaintiff introduced two surveys to support its claim of consumer confusion over the defendant’s use of the word “pin.” The Court determined that “fatal defects in the design of each survey render their results meaningless to the resolution of this lawsuit.” The Court found in favor of Pintrips on all causes of action asserted by Pinterest.
In Elliott v. Google, Inc., 45 F. Supp. 3d 1156 – Dist. Court, D. Arizona (2014), the plaintiff’s surveys were excluded because they were deemed unscientific and poorly constructed. The survey expert was also rejected by the Court as unqualified “to design a survey or to interpret survey results.”
In Water Pik, Inc. v. Med-Systems, Inc., 726 F.3d 1142, 1144-50 (10th Cir. 2013), there is a long discussion about the Court’s conclusion that survey evidence submitted by the defendant, “had too many methodological flaws to be of any probative value.” The Court determined that the district court had properly awarded summary judgment to Water Pik.
Get in touch with the trademark survey experts at Keegan & Donato Consulting at (914) 967-9421 to find out how a survey could help you develop the best-case strategy. We employ both classic survey designs and create innovative custom survey designs to meet our clients’ needs.