Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney performs trademark work for a variety of nationally and internationally known companies and marks, including Dick's Sporting Goods, Fontainebleau Resorts, Michelin, Chevron Corporation, 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 including private practice, in-house and PTO experience. They handle thousands of trademark applications and registrations in the United States and other countries. The majority of our trademark attorneys are staffed in our Old Town Alexandria within blocks of the PTO. As a result, it is not uncommon for our attorneys to walk over to the office to discuss pending issues with PTO examiners and staff.  All of our attorneys are members of the major U.S. and international intellectual property organizations such as INTA (International Trademark Association), IPO (Intellectual Property Owners), AIPLA (American Intellectual Property Law Association, the IP Section of the ABA (American Bar Association), PTMG (Pharmaceutical Trademark Group) and ITMA (Institute of Trademark Attorneys). They are also engaged in several local bar organizations and speak frequently throughout the country and abroad on the latest U.S. trademark law developments. They have also served on PTO committees providing integral counsel to the PTO on trademark prosecution and Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) rules.  

We understand the value of teamwork and the importance of serving our clients effectively and efficiently. To this end, our department and client teams are staffed with a diverse mix of highly experienced senior attorneys, associates, paralegals and assistants.  

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 quickly search, register, protect and enforce 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 either in the U.S. or abroad, and we can carefully counsel clients on the selection and adoption of marks to avoid future problems in registration and use. Additionally, several of our attorneys speak various foreign languages.

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
• Notification of hot trademark developments via the Buchanan "Trademark Alert" publication  
• Frequent status updates that make it possible to easily identify the current status of trademark applications, registrations and litigation matters

Our trademark attorneys also have experience in prosecuting and defending opposition and cancellation proceedings before the 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, trade dress, trade secret and unfair competition cases throughout the country, including federal district courts in Alabama, California, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, New York and Virginia. We have also litigated successfully numerous disputes over the ownership of domain names in the federal courts and through the ICANN dispute resolution procedures.

Copyrights

With ever-evolving technologies especially in the world of digital media, e-commerce and software programs, it is important for our clients to understand and protect their innovative ideas and original materials via copyright law. It is also important for clients to understand their rights under such copyright laws and provisions as "fair use," "work -for-hire, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and the more recent Orphan Works legislation addressing the right to use copyrighted works whose owners may be difficult or impossible to locate.   

Buchanan's Copyright expertise is a major part of our full range of intellectual property and technology transactions services. Our clients include authors, non-governmental organizations, television producers, designers of web pages, software developers, architects and artists and entertainment companies. Several Buchanan attorneys have many years of experience with copyright matters, including teaching copyright law at Washington, D.C.-area law schools and litigating copyright cases before federal and state courts. We also draft filings for the registration of copyrights, 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 federal district courts. We also coordinate international enforcement of copyrights throughout the world and we provide the following services to 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.
• Reviewing and drafting a wide range of commercial agreements that protect copyrights through licensing and technology transfers.