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Trademark Definitions & Law

To the unititiated, trademark law is confusing. Appropriate because the touchstone of trademark infringement is consumer confusion. Trademark lawyers, i.e., corporate lawyers, trade on this confusion when falsely threatening trademark infringemnt and improperly interferring with the legitimate sales of items. The following information is provided in an effort to explain in lay terms the various aspects of trademark law; not all of which are consistant throught the federal court system and some are still unsettled.

Some companies, and their corporate lawyers, will allege almost anything in order to pad their case and to scare their opponent. Their original allegations do not have to be actually presented to a court. In many cases they are an act of intimidation, or posturing. Remember, lawyers get paid by the number of pages they generate; not whether they win or lose. If lawyers got paid for winning, there would be considerably fewer court cases.

We do not agree with all of the opinions or conclusions stated in these articles. We have attempted to present all sides of the arguments as we have found them. We only present information we consider to be well-argued and factually supported. We do not take credit for the information presented. The great majority of it is gleaned from other sources. In many cases we credit the originator.

Bear in mind, that from 1947, the year the Lanham Act was made law, through 2005, the owners of trademarks have not fared well in federal court cases for trademark infringement. Of the cases that went to trial, the trademark owners won ONLY 51% of the decisions. They lost as often as they won. So, if a trademark owner accuses you of infringement, and you are confident you were not infringing (after reading this site), the trademark owner may be guity of Trademark Extortion,

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Trademark Definitions
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Secondary Meaning   |   Subsequent Confusion   |   Trademark Abuse   |   Unauthorized Use   |   Unfair Competition   |   What is a Trademark?
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Federal Statutes
Copyright Act 17 U.S.C. 5 | Digital Millenium Copyright Act 17 U.S.C. 12 | Lanham Act 15 U.S.C. 22

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