Practice Areas & Industries: Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC

Practice/Industry Group Overview

Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney performs trademark work for a variety of nationally and internationally known companies and marks, including Deere & Company, Foster's Group Limited, KV Pharmaceutical Co., Lafarge North America Inc., Mt. Olive Pickle Company, Pilsner Urquell, Precision Tune Auto Care, Remy Martin, Scottish & Newcastle Breweries Ltd. and Waterford Wedgwood plc.

Our trademark attorneys have many years of professional experience and handle thousands of trademark applications and registrations in the United States and other countries.

Services Available

Clearance and Registration

Buchanan has longstanding relationships with a worldwide network of foreign associates, including top intellectual property law firms in Europe, Asia, South and Central America, Africa, Australia and the South Pacific. Through our foreign relationships, we can search, register and protect marks in virtually every country in the world.

Before applying to register a mark, we can secure reliable search results concerning the availability of the mark in the jurisdictions of interest, whether they are the United States or other countries. Our experience enables us to recognize when a mark may be difficult to register, and we can carefully counsel clients on the selection and adoption of marks to avoid future problems in registration and use.

Protection and Enforcement

Because protecting trademark rights is an ongoing process, we also provide the following services for our clients:

• Monitoring and researching third-party applications, uses and infringements
• Pursuing favorable conflict resolution against infringers and, if necessary, enforcing legal rights and equitable remedies in the courts
• Licensing trademarks
• Preparing internal company guidelines to ensure proper and consistent trademark use in order to preserve rights
• Recording trademarks with U.S. Customs
• Due diligence research regarding rights in trademarks to be acquired

Our trademark attorneys also have experience in prosecuting and defending opposition and cancellation actions before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board ("TTAB"). We have experience in trademark litigation in state courts, federal district courts, the appellate courts (including the Federal Circuit), and before the International Trade Commission. Within the last few years, our trademark attorneys have litigated trademark and trade dress cases throughout the country, including federal district courts in Alabama, California, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, New York and Virginia. We have also litigated disputes over the ownership of domain names in the federal courts and through the ICANN dispute resolution procedures.

Copyrights

Buchanan performs copyright work as part of our full range of intellectual property services. Our clients include authors, television producers, designers of web pages, software developers, architects and artists. Several Buchanan attorneys have many years of experience with copyright matters, including teaching copyright law at Washington, D.C.-area law schools. We draft filings for registration of copyright, undertake copyright and title clearance searches and draft letters of agreement and licenses.

While immediate registration of a work is not an absolute requirement for protection in the United States, there are important benefits to securing a timely registration, including access to the courts for enforcement of rights, a presumption of accuracy of the information on file and availability of statutory damages.

Because protecting copyrights does not end with the act of registration, our attorneys have significant experience in copyright litigation in the federal district courts. We also coordinate international enforcement of copyrights through our associates throughout the world and we provide the following services for our clients:

• Monitoring third-party copyright registrations worldwide
• Monitoring and investigating third-party uses and infringements
• Drafting demand letters to infringers and negotiating settlement agreements
• Preparing internal company guidelines to ensure proper and consistent copyright use in order to maintain strong rights.