Trademarks are the cornerstones of a brand’s identity, serving as visual representations that consumers associate with a company’s products or services. When it comes to trademark registration and protection, distinctiveness is a critical factor. A distinctive trademark is unique, memorable, and easily distinguishable from other marks in the marketplace.

Establishing a trademark’s distinctiveness is a crucial step in building a robust brand identity and safeguarding your intellectual property. Without a clear demonstration of distinctiveness, your trademark may be at risk of being rejected or challenged by competitors, limiting your ability to differentiate your products or services effectively in the market. Understanding the importance of distinctiveness is the first step in leveraging surveys to support your trademark strategy. Keegan & Donato Consulting can help.

About Our Firm

We serve attorneys practicing in federal and state courts before arbitration panels, the TTAB, the NAD, and other specialty venues and their clients. We offer over 30 combined years of proven survey methodologies, deep operational insight, and broad industry experience.

With over 30 years of combined experience in the field, principals Mark Keegan and Tony Donato have developed surveys for and collaborated with firms that manage some of the largest trademark portfolios in the world. We have wide-ranging skills and tools that can help you strengthen your case.

We will:

• execute surveys with rigorous methodological principles
• document and support our choice of survey questions and sample methods
• minimize the possibility of bias
• carefully analyze the data
• support the results with knowledgeable, reliable expert testimony

How Surveys Can Help

Surveys play a pivotal role in providing empirical evidence to support a trademark’s distinctiveness. By gathering data directly from target consumers, surveys can offer valuable insights into how your mark is perceived, recognized, and associated with your brand.

Conducting well-designed surveys can help you assess the strength of your trademark in several ways. First, surveys can measure brand awareness and recognition among consumers. Second, surveys can uncover the primary associations and meanings that consumers ascribe to your trademark. Distinctive marks tend to have strong, unique associations directly tied to your brand rather than generic or descriptive meanings.

The choice of survey type will depend on the specific goals and challenges you face in establishing the distinctiveness of your trademark. Working with the experienced survey professionals at Keegan & Donato Consulting can help you select the most appropriate methodology and design a survey yielding the most compelling and admissible evidence.

Finally, surveys can help identify potential consumer confusion or dilution risks, where your trademark may be mistaken for or associated with other similar marks in the market. This information is crucial in defending the uniqueness of your trademark and preventing infringement.

Conclusion

Establishing a trademark’s distinctiveness is a critical step in building a strong brand identity and protecting intellectual property. By using surveys to establish trademark distinctiveness, you can better understand your target consumers, identify potential risks, and ultimately build a more robust and defensible brand identity.

Keegan & Donato Consulting delivers intelligence quickly within a wide range of budgets to help reinforce your strategy. Contact us today at (914) 967-9421 for more information.