Idea Express Achieves Victory Over Trademark Infringers

Online, April 8, 2012 (Newswire.com) - Idea Express, Inc. and The Idea Express Group (IEG), a company that prints and distributes numerous promotional and office related products, has been quite diligent in protecting its trademarks lately. The company recently announced that it was successful in cracking down on a competing company that was attempting to infringe on its trademark.

Last year, IEG discovered that someone had formed a Nevada LLC called "Idea Express LLC" and had bought the matching domain ideaexpress.com from a cybersquatter who was selling it. The new company set up a website on the domain and was planning to market a computer-related product on it.

Idea Express Group, which had used that name since the mid 1990's realized the use of the name and domain would cause confusion with its customers. Especially since the IEG trademark specifically covers online marketing of products.

IEG hired LA-based trademark attorney Gary Hecker to defend their position. Their attorney sent a cease and desist letter to the LLC. Still the other party continued to use the name. So IEG went forward with filing the complaint, after which the other parties finally relented.

Use of third-party trademarks as part of domain names constitutes cyberpiracy under the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. 1125(d)(1) for which statutory damages can be awarded in the amount of $100,000 per domain name. "Unfortunately, this is indicative of a growing problem on the Internet," explains David Lee, a spokesman for IEG. "It is not uncommon for an individual to acquire a domain name and think that, since it was available, it must be okay to use for their business." He adds, "Of course, one should always check to see if that use is violating somebody's trademark."

According to their attorney, the fact that IEG has actively and successfully defended their trademark now sets a strong precedent which will make it difficult for future infringers to argue against. This, in turn, further increases the company's goodwill and branding value.