From the course: Understanding Intellectual Property

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Due diligence

Due diligence

From the course: Understanding Intellectual Property

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Due diligence

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- Due diligence. As part of determining whether to use a trademark, many people want to rush to figure out how to protect their trademark. But the first question is actually not how to protect your mark, but whether you have infringement risk when you start using the trademark. You need to evaluate the risk of picking a mark that someone else has rights to. You don't want to get started in business and then get a demand or a lawsuit and need to change your name or pay lawyers to defend you. Well, how do you figure out if you have infringement risk? You conduct searches for similar trademarks. You can do that yourself, or you can pay a third-party service provider, such as an attorney or a trademark search specialist. The due diligence will focus on finding similar marks used for similar products and services. Part of the work will be figuring out whether the products or services cross over or are competitive. And part of the work will be evaluating the relative strengths of the marks…

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