Protecting Your Brand and Customers During a Pandemic, Part 2

This post was co-authored by Duane Morris partner Alain Villeneuve and patent agent Nicole Candelori, and it is the second installment of a multipart series. 

In Tuesday’s post, we helped you diagnose and address the misuse of your brand as part of a website’s URL address. We hope this was useful. Recently, because of some desperation to sell low-quality goods, there has also been a dramatic increase in the misuse of leading brand names to sell infringing and/or counterfeit goods. The brand names are often used as part of a longer semi-descriptive name of a product on an online retailer site. We have also observed these brand violations on fully structured websites and in social media ads that draw to these pages. As part of these websites, your brand could be used somewhat descriptively in the title, in part of the product description text, in strangely frequent occurrences in the reviews, or simply in a comparison. Use of your mark, sprinkled on webpages, helps internet search engines find this abuser’s page, and these uses are most often illegal. Continue reading “Protecting Your Brand and Customers During a Pandemic, Part 2”

Protecting Your Brand and Customers During a Pandemic

This post was co-authored by Nicole Candelori and Christiane Schuman Campbell, and it is the first installment of a multipart series.

As most brick and mortar stores across the U.S. remain closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, phishing scammers have ample opportunities to attack the retail industry online by stealing customer data. One common method scammers use to steal information involves purchasing a domain name that includes (or is confusingly similar to) the name of a well-known business. For example, “typosquatters” might purchase a domain name similar to your business’ domain name, but it could include a common typo that a customer might make when searching for your legitimate website. The fake website might look similar to your legitimate site and prompt customers to input a username, password, credit card number, or other personal information that the scammer could then steal to use or sell.

During a time like this when customers are increasingly looking to purchase consumer goods online (e.g. home décor, kitchen appliances, and home office furniture), businesses selling these goods should be extra vigilant of these misleading (and often, infringing) websites. Businesses can hire trademark watch companies to monitor for any new domains that encompass their trademark or variants thereof. If your business becomes aware of a domain name that encompasses its trademark (or something confusingly similar) in an attempt to mislead consumers, there are a number of steps you can take to protect your brand and customers. Continue reading “Protecting Your Brand and Customers During a Pandemic”

© 2009- Duane Morris LLP. Duane Morris is a registered service mark of Duane Morris LLP.

The opinions expressed on this blog are those of the author and are not to be construed as legal advice.

Proudly powered by WordPress