How Online Trademark Monitoring Can Prevent Brand Infringement

Brand identity plays an essential role in any business. 

It's how you distinguish yourself from a sea of competitors. However, with success comes the imitators.

While imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, it's also legally problematic. The last thing you want to do is develop a great product or a winning brand strategy only to find out someone has stolen your idea. 

That's why you need to do your due diligence; and one way to do this is through online trademark monitoring.

What is online trademark monitoring?

Online trademark monitoring involves monitoring online spaces for unlicensed use or imitation of your branding. These spaces include social media, online sellers, and websites in general. 

Trademarked elements can include:

• Logos and other branded imagery.
• Brand names and slogans.
• Trademarked characters.
• Distinctive branded fonts and color combinations.

As a trademark owner, monitoring is your responsibility. 

For example:

Let's say your company offers a VoIP phone system for small business use. Then, one day, you find someone complaining about your service on social media.

You dig a little deeper and find a website with a suspiciously similar name to your own. Maybe there's a slight spelling difference or a different domain name extension like .net or .com.

This imitator is clearly damaging your brand. More than that, this is a violation of the law and is a classic example of trademark infringement. 

Let's take a closer look at what that means.

Defining trademark infringement

Broadly speaking, trademark infringement is the imitation of branded elements.

It occurs any time someone tries to actively imitate your brand or uses specific branded elements in their own material without consent.

Of course, this assumes the infringed party has successfully filed for a trademark in the first place (or has solid protection under the common law). 

Want to learn more about trademark infringement? Read our detailed article “Get To Know Trademark Infringement With Trademarkia.”

Trademark infringement vs. dilution

Trademark infringement is the direct, intentional violation of your trademark. 

More importantly, the customer is completely unaware. They're under the impression that they're interacting with your brand, not an imitator.

As such, any service issues, product malfunctions, or bad interactions end up reflecting on you.

(Even though you had nothing to do with them.)

Trademark dilution occurs when unauthorized use weakens a brand, both performatively and legally. 

What distinguishes it from infringement is that customers are aware. They know they're getting counterfeit goods and may even intentionally seek them out. 

(Like that friend who comes back from their holiday proudly sporting their knock-off Rolex or fake designer handbag.)

Online trademark monitoring services

As a trademark holder, the obligation to monitor and enforce it typically falls on your shoulders. 

(However, before this, it's essential to craft a brand strategy that clearly defines the unique elements worth protecting.)

Although, outsourcing this responsibility to online trademark monitoring services may be a good idea  as these services know what to look for. 

Keep your brand protected. Ensure what's yours remains secure with Trademarkia's monitoring services. 

The benefits of online trademark monitoring services

On the surface, keeping track of trademarks yourself might seem like less of a hassle. 

You can save some money and don't have to spend time coordinating with a third-party service provider. 

But manual trademark monitoring is a huge pain.

It's easy to miss things and is also very time-consuming. With that in mind, let's examine the six ways online trademark monitoring services can make your life easier.

1. Outsourcing trademark monitoring saves you time

As tasks go, manually scouring the internet for potential brand infringement is about as tedious as it gets. 

Countless web pages, social media posts, videos, and images are uploaded every day (this is moore content than one person could even scratch the surface of in their lifetime).

Of course, there are tools online to help with this, such as an AI form designed to streamline the detection and analysis of trademark infringements. 

These complement traditional methods like search functions and keyword tracking, enhancing the overall effectiveness of monitoring efforts. However, despite these advanced capabilities, there are inherent limits to what can be autonomously detected.

Let's say your B2B company offers a sales AI tool. 

AI tech is huge right now, and it seems like every day brings more start-ups crawling out of the woodwork.

Even with a framework in place, going out of your way to check out other emerging AI brands for potential violations is a huge time-sink.

With a dedicated trademark watch service, however, this process is always ongoing. 

As soon as your provider knows something, so do you. Then, it's simply a matter of deciding how to respond.

2. A dedicated service has less margin for error

An ongoing online trademark monitoring service is less likely to miss things. 

(Since infringements can originate from so many places online, it's easy for things to slip through the cracks.)

Letting an infringement continue for too long can complicate your ability to respond legally. You need to catch things at the earliest stage to resolve them effectively.

3. It prevents trademark dilution over time

Don't underestimate the importance of trademarks for brand loyalty. 

Trademarks are a signifier of quality and consistency. When people see your product's logo and distinctive color combination on a shelf, it triggers those feelings of familiarity.

However, when you allow knock-offs to run rampant, your brand inevitably suffers. This is either because people don't see a meaningful difference between your goods and the fakes or because they genuinely mistake inferior products for your brand.

Using an online trademark monitoring service means you can make a habit of crushing these infringements in their earliest stages.

This helps prevent those negative associations from forming and helps you build stronger cases against any future infringement.

4. Immediate responses save legal costs

Responding quickly to trademark violations means dealing with them quickly, too. The longer an infringing business can continue operating, the stronger its defense.

Waiting to respond can result in drawn-out trademark infringement lawsuits and higher associated fees. 

5. It discourages future infringement

Malicious actors are more likely to infringe on your trademarks if they think they can get away with it or avoid notice. That's why demonstrable consequences are the best deterrent.

Using the right online trademark monitoring service cultivates this reputation.

This hammers home to potential trademark thieves that you aren't worth the risks. After all, prevention is always better than mitigation.

6. Trademark monitoring offers competitive insights

While trademark monitoring is largely a safeguarding practice, that's not the only application. 

A trademark monitoring service will monitor industry competitors for incidental or malicious infringement, but this information has other uses.

It's also a means of detecting industry developments and trends. 

For example, let's say you run a B2B comms company and notice an uptick in competitors registering domains and branding around a call forwarding service.

This suggests it's something your competitors have experienced high demand for, meaning you should also look into it. Thanks to online trademark monitoring, you've discovered an actionable insight you may have overlooked.

The risks of not monitoring trademarks

To reiterate, when it comes to trademark and intellectual property protection, it's your obligation to be vigilant. Unless you subscribe to an online trademark monitoring service, nobody will do it for you.

Here are some of the dangers of failing to do your trademark monitoring due diligence.

1. Loss of brand uniqueness

When you allow competitors to infringe on your brand, it can cause once distinct elements to become generic. 

And if you get past the point of being able to push back against the infringement, your only option becomes a major rebrand. 

While this may help, there's no guarantee it'll be as successful as your original trademarked brand identity. On top of that, there's no deterrent to stop competitors from stealing your ideas all over again.

2. Customer confusion and reputational damage

A lack of online trademark monitoring lets infringement grow out of hand very quickly. The resulting customer confusion can make it incredibly difficult to promote your business effectively. 

Otherwise promising leads may be unsure which business is fake and may view legitimate marketing efforts with suspicion.

On top of that, shallow imitators are unlikely to match a high quality of service. 

This means would-be customers are coming away with false brand impressions. Counterfeit businesses may have customer service thar comes off as rude and unprofessional. And counterfeit goods can be:

• Unsafe,
• Poor quality,
• Or hard to use.

Let's look at an example. 

Let's say your tech company launches an informative promotional campaign titled "What is a CICS mainframe, and why do they matter?" 

The aim is to educate potential B2B clients about the importance of transaction processing systems while highlighting your own product.

Then, a shady competitor steals your marketing assets and uses them to promote their own (inferior) product marketed under a similar name.

 Several major clients experience catastrophic data loss with the fake product and attribute these failures to your brand. You can imagine how difficult it is to recover from something like that.

3. Loss or limitation of trademark rights

Last but not least, the biggest consequence of neglecting online trademark monitoring is losing control altogether by missing your opposition deadlines. Failure to properly enforce your trademark in the face of infringement creates a precedent for other parties using the trademarked assets.

(You're tacitly condoning your trademark's use by not acting to prevent infringement.)

Furthermore, when otherwise trademarked names or terms aren't properly protected, they risk becoming generic (meaning anyone is free to use them). 

Let's look at an example:

Let's say your tech company runs an app for employee activities and time management. To promote your service, you trademark a few snappy slogans to serve as concise, memorable tips for effective scheduling. 

However, you don't monitor them.

Years later, you realize several competitors have co-opted those slogans for their own apps. However, by the time you've noticed, it's far too late to do anything.

Other commonly used tools

We hope that by now, you have been convinced that online trademark monitoring is a vital practice. However, you may not be ready to pay for a dedicated monitoring service to operate on your behalf.

But you still need to monitor your trademarks, whether you're a small start-up offering business phone services or a major corporation with millions of active users. 

So, to finish off, let's look at some tools you can use to help you handle your trademark monitoring obligations internally.

1. Various Google services

Google offers various online services that are essential for many businesses. Among other things, these tools can be used to monitor trademarks. 

Particularly useful examples include:

• Google Ads and its keyword planner for tracking search terms and online trademark usage.
• Search functionality and Google Alerts, letting you manually trawl website listings or set alerts on your trademarked terms.

2. Additional tools for branding and trademark management

Besides these monitoring tools, a business name generator can be an excellent option if you're just starting out and need to create a distinctive brand name.

It can help generate unique names, which you can then check for trademark issues before settling on one. 

This ensures that you start your branding with a name that stands out and is legally defensible.

3. Third party seller listings

Websites like eBay and Amazon host billions of transactions for sellers worldwide every day. 

While this is great for consumer flexibility, it's also the perfect place for shady sellers to market knock-off goods or for competitors to step on your branding.

4. Trademarkia search engine

Trademarkia offers the largest free trademark search service, offering a user-friendly search of millions of registered trademarks.

If you're planning on registering any new trademarks, our search engine is a quick and easy way to ensure that you won't accidentally infringe on the rights of another business.

It's also handy for finding out what trademarks your competitors are filing for and which trademarks the owners abandon or renew.

Online trademark monitoring is a key responsibility

The importance of trademark law can't be overlooked. 

Think of any major brand in the modern day. Behind each one are numerous trademarks, from Amazon's smiley packaging to that sound Netflix makes when you log in.

If another company tried to use these designs, neither of those businesses would hesitate. The alternative is to risk losing exclusive control of something central to their brand identity. 

That's why you should monitor trademarks online, preferably through dedicated trademark watch services.

At Trademarkia, you can ensure your brand is protected with our brand monitoring service. This lets you focus on what you do best, making your business a success.