The latest research has revealed that eight in ten companies experienced an aspect of trademark infringement during 2018.
The figures which were revealed by trademark research and protection market leaders CompuMark and were obtained from a survey involving 352 trademark professionals from in house and external legal teams across the UK, Germany, France, USA and Italy.
The survey found that 81 per cent of companies were affected by a form of infringement last year an increase of 7 per cent on 2017. Of those 81 per cent, 40 per cent of companies had experienced between one to ten cases of infringement, whilst 22 per cent experienced between eleven and twenty.
Customer confusion, damage to brand reputation and reduced customer trust were found to be the main three consequences of the infringements, and almost three-quarters of companies said that they had taken legal action against infringing marks in a bid to limit the damage to their company.
30 per cent of respondents revealed their firm even had to change a brand name as a result of an infringement.
Respondents said they experienced infringement across a wide range of types, including industrial design, social media name, business name, web domains, advertising campaigns and online marketplaces.
Jeff Roy, President of CompuMark, said: “The trademark filing landscape is quickly evolving, and trademark professionals and brands need to adapt in order to ensure they are able to effectively mitigate the risk presented by a potential infringement.
The report shows that both trademark filing activity and infringement are on the rise, highlighting the need for increased efficiency and vigilance when it comes to both researching new trademarks and protecting existing ones.
“The research also shows that technology has a bigger role to play in supporting trademark professionals in the trademark filing process, as well as when it comes to trademark protection,”
To find out more about how Palmers can help with intellectual property, please click here.