Investigating Trademark Infringement

I would advise the officers of the corporation to take the following steps in
investigating a potential case of trademark infringement. First, the officers should decide
whether or not to investigate the alleged or possible case of trademark infringement. This is
important because while many such cases may be brought to the attention of the officers, not
all will be worth investigating (U.S. Department of Justice, n.d.). Next, if the officers decide
to pursue the case, they should decide whether to investigate it internally or use an external
investigator. For a non-routine case, the officers would be well-advised to seek an external
specialist, mainly for the objectivity they bring.
Next, whether the officers decide to investigate internally or seek outside help, they
must agree on who will be charged with supervising the investigation and making important
decisions. This could be the legal counsel, the CEO, or the board. Still, to protect legal
privilege, the officers could decide to have an outside law firm supervise the investigation.
Finally, the officers should agree on the acceptable investigative tactics, regardless of
whether the investigation will be undertaken internally or externally. Some of the
investigative methods they could consider but are not limited to investigative research,
interviewing persons of interest, surveillance, and searching trash, also known as “dumpster
diving”.
In the event that the alleged case was one of sexual harassment, the officers would
still follow these same steps. However, they would have to expend more effort into the first
step: determining whether the alleged case amounts to actionable sexual harassment. This
would be especially important in this era of #MeToo (Holloman & Han, 2021). Otherwise,
the corporation could waste a lot of time and resources on too many frivolous cases.

INVESTIGATING TRADEMARK INFRINGEMENT 3

References

Holloman, E. V., & Han, H. (2021, September 18). United States: Sexual Harassment
Workplace Investigations In The MeToo Era. Retrieved from Mondaq:
https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/discrimination-disability-sexual-
harassment/1112686/sexual-harassment-workplace-investigations-in-the-metoo-era
U.S. Department of Justice. (n.d.). Reporting Intellectual Property Crime. Washington, DC:
U.S. Department of Justice.