Causes Of Legal Action For Trademark Infringement
Trademarks offer legal protection for certain words, logos, images and other symbols used by companies for carrying out their business. They offer the trademark owners with the rights to bring legal proceedings against the infringers or counterfeiters of their mark and at the same time avert the customers from being influenced by counterfeit products available in the market.
The two main reasons of legal action brought under the trademarks framework are dilution of the trademark of a known company and likelihood of misunderstanding by the customers.
A trademark is considered to be diluted when an individual or firm tries to harm the uniqueness of the trademarked goods of a popular company, which in turn might cause damage to the image of the latter company in the eyes of the consumers. For instance, if a firm producing food products has a specific trademark, which is then copied by another firm that manufactures pesticides, there is a likelihood of customers thinking that the former is endangering its product quality.
As far as the probability of confusion is concerned, it is based on the deceptive similarity of the two marks, making it hard for the customers to distinguish between the items. The confusion could be with respect to the source of the product, its sponsors, or to any other aspect related to it. The underlying assumption behind this confusion is that an average customer would not be able to remember the exact details of an item. In such a case, a trademark infringement would have major potential to cause commercial damage to the company that holds the genuine trademark.
However, there are many other claims that are possible in terms of trademark infringement. The owner of the trademark can also bring an action for pass off, which implies that another party is trying to sell its products claiming to be coming from him. In the same way, legal action can also be taken for unhealthy competition and other such allegations.
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