Common Questions – Benefits of Trademark Searching

by Christina Frangiosa

Searching for potentially competing trademarks before you go through the time and expense of developing a strong brand is a very worthwhile exercise, but it costs money – and sometimes clients can be reluctant to spend the money if it’s not technically “required” to do so.

Trademark searching is not required before you file an application for federal trademark registration with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO), but it is highly recommended. Here are a few reasons why:

1) The USPTO’s filing fees are non-refundable if an Examining Attorney refuses registration of your mark based on a pre-existing application or a registration owned by another;

2) The owner of the pre-existing mark could send you a cease and desist letter demanding that you stop using their mark, change your mark, perhaps destroy products or advertising material that uses the mark, seek disgorgement of profits for earnings using their mark or seek other remedies; and

3) The whole point of developing a valuable trademark (or service mark) is to create “source identification” – basically, to allow the consuming public to associate your unique mark with you. And only you. This value is undermined if there are lots of marks that are very similar to the one you ultimately adopt and use.

There are different levels of searching that can be beneficial – depending on your circumstances. They include:

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Why Privacy Policies Must be Personalized

by Christina Frangiosa

The best argument for why companies should never simply copy and paste the text of another entities’ privacy policy onto their own website can be found in the recent announcement by the FTC of a settlement reached with Snapchat – relating to misrepresentations contained in the Privacy Policy, among other things. (Snapchat is not alleged to have used someone else’s Privacy Policy as its own; however, its mistakes in its public statements about its products illustrate fully that companies should say what they mean, and mean what they say in their privacy policies!) Continue reading …

Data Breach Planning for Small Businesses

by Christina Frangiosa

Many of the top stories last year related to data breach – from the Target breach during the Christmas Shopping Season (Dec. 2013: Prior Post, Small Business Magazine article; additional news coverage) to the UPS Store data breach during the summer (Aug. 21, 2014) to, more recently, the intentional hacking of Sony Pictures‘ servers (Nov. 24, 2014) and Staples’ data breach (Dec. 19, 2014).

It would be easy to believe that data security breaches happen only to large organizations, but such a belief would be mistaken. In the last year, a number of smaller companies have experienced breaches of the records they maintain. These can occur in at least two ways – 1) they may be the third-party vendor through whom hackers invade a larger company like Target or Home Depot; or 2) they use a third-party vendor who experiences a breach that impacts the smaller company’s customers. Continue reading …

LinkedIn Sued for Providing “Trusted References” to Paying Subscribers

by Christina Frangiosa

On October 9, 2014, a class action complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California alleging that LinkedIn violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq., (“FRCA“) by offering to subscribers reports containing “Trusted References” without complying with the FCRA’s requirements to keep the data safe from disclosure. Sweet v. LinkedIn Corp., Civ. A. No. 5:14-cv-04531 (N.D. Cal. filed Oct. 9, 2014) (available at Law360 – subscription required).

Specifically, the complaint alleges that LinkedIn: 1) failed to comply with the certification and disclosure requirements of the FRCA for credit reporting agencies who furnish consumer reports for employment purposes; 2) failed to maintain reasonable procedures to limit the furnishing of consumer reports for the purposes enumerated in the FRCA and to assure the maximum possible accuracy of these reports; and 3) failed to provide the notices required by the FRCA to users of the consumer reports. Id. at 2. Plaintiffs seek both damages for past violations and injunctive relief to prevent the continued misuse of these reports in violation of the FRCA. Id. Continue reading …

Moving to WordPress

by Christina Frangiosa

I am very pleased to announce that The Privacy and IP Law Blog has moved to WordPress, and to a dedicated domain – PrivacyandIPLawBlog.com! The blog will operate on both the Blogspot.com location and on the new location for a few months while all the kinks are worked out. Ultimately, the RSS Feed and subscriber links will also move to WordPress.

Why the switch?
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