When you hear or see the names “Thin Mint,” “Cinnamon Toast Crunch,” or “Tootsie Roll,” the images evoked are not those of nicotine or e-cigarettes. Now brand owners like General Mills Inc., the Girl Scouts of the USA, and Tootsie Roll Industries are fighting to keep it that way after the Food and Drug Administration declined to immediately ban fruit and candy flavors for use in electronic cigarettes, despite their similar ruling on traditional cigarettes due to their potential appeal to children. E-cigarette sales have reached nearly $2 billion in sales despite growing regulation, and the lack of intellectual property enforcement has allowed the use of well-known brands such as “Junior Mints” to initially be associated with companies that do not actually own those trademarks.

This trend mirrors the branding growing pains that generally accompany entrepreneurship in new fields; companies sometimes encroach the goodwill associated with famous brands and trademarks until the legitimate brand owners assert, protect, and enforce their proprietary rights in their trademarks and intellectual property.

While the initial monitoring and policing of a trademark portfolio may appear to be more costly, failure to enforce and assert trademark rights may ultimately lead to the abandonment of your trademark and brand. As such, simply having sent cease-and-desist letters could mean the difference to a court in demonstrating a company’s attempt to maintain rights in its trademark or brand.

Source: http://www.nhregister.com/general-news/20140525/thin-mint-other-brands-want-trademark-names-kept-off-e-cigarettes

For more information on this topic, please visit our trademark protection service page.

Klemchuk LLP is an Intellectual Property (IP), Technology, Internet, and Business law firm located in Dallas, TX.  The firm offers comprehensive legal services including litigation and enforcement of all forms of IP as well as registration and licensing of patents, trademarks, trade dress, and copyrights.  The firm also provides a wide range of technology, Internet, e-commerce, and business services including business planning, formation, and financing, mergers and acquisitions, business litigation, data privacy, and domain name dispute resolution.  Additional information about the IP law firm and its IP law attorneys may be found at www.klemchuk.com.

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