Trademark, Copyright, and Advertising

Hanson Bridgett's award-winning trademark, copyright, and advertising practice is sophisticated, experienced, and client-focused. Our agile team is perfectly positioned to provide expert advice at competitive rates to clients of all sizes, from early-stage startups and midsize companies to famous brands and industry leaders.

Our clients are at the center of everything we do. Our primary goal is to make clients’ lives easier, and our experienced attorneys and paralegals are well-versed in advising on best practices while also recognizing there is no one-size-fits-all solution. We partner with each client to understand their unique business and challenges, and we tailor our approach to each client’s preferences.

Hanson Bridgett routinely handles all aspects of US and international global brand management, helping clients develop, establish, and protect their most valuable intellectual property.

Experience

Our attorneys have global experience encompassing prosecution, litigation, and transactional work, and we understand how these areas interconnect to impact outcomes. By taking an integrated approach, we can deliver strategic solutions and avoid common pitfalls arising from more siloed decision-making. We prepare comprehensive strategies that align with your business objectives, growth plans, and timing.

Representative service areas include:

• Trademark and trade dress clearance, prosecution, and portfolio management
• Trademark, trade dress, and product packaging litigation
• Copyright counseling and registration
• Copyright, defamation, fair use, and First Amendment litigation
• Global IP strategy development and maintenance
• Brand monitoring and policing
• Customs registrations and enforcement
• Anti-counterfeiting, fraud, and impersonation actions
• Due Diligence
• Licensing, co-branding, assignments, and coexistence agreements
• Rights of privacy and publicity
• Online brand strategy, acquisitions, and portfolio counseling regarding domain names, social media, app platforms, blockchain, and Web3
• Internet-related counseling including cybersquatting, takedowns, and domain disputes

Trademark Clearance, Filing, and Prosecution

Our attorneys have extensive experience managing global portfolios. Many of our clients have famous brands with global reach, but we also advise smaller companies just beginning the trademark process, and midsize companies seeking to expand their global reach. We assist at every stage, from helping select new marks, identify potential risks, and develop risk mitigation strategies; to drafting and filing trademark applications and shepherding them through to registration; to post-registration maintenance, protection, and expansion. Our team is versatile and has implemented a range of approaches for different clients. We think multiple steps ahead and customize solutions to client preferences and risk tolerance, focusing on practical, actionable advice.

Hanson Bridgett is currently managing thousands of trademark applications and registrations in more than 155 jurisdictions throughout the world. We routinely conduct screening and clearance searches and provide risk assessments and legal opinions on prospective marks. We conduct IP audits and advise on long-term portfolio development, coordinating filings and timing to align with important business and financing events. We devise creative protection strategies for non-traditional trademarks and trade dress, and handle all aspects of drafting, preparing, and filing trademark applications and pursuing them to registration, including U.S. state and federal applications, international Madrid Protocol applications, and foreign filings. We collaborate with vetted foreign associates throughout the world and hold leadership positions in the International Trademark Association (INTA), allowing us to build close and trusting relationships. We communicate with Examining Attorneys, prepare office action responses and legal arguments, and guide clients on collecting and maintaining trademark use evidence to support their rights. After registration, we help clients with maintenance and renewal, handle assignments and recordation, and assist with post-merger IP portfolio integration and consolidation.

Trademark & Trade Dress Disputes

We represent our clients in all aspects of trademark and trade dress disputes. This includes cease and desist work, opposition and cancellation actions before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board or comparable boards and agencies globally, and where needed, litigation in state and federal court, or even coordinating and overseeing litigation filed abroad.

We represent both plaintiffs and defendants, and are practiced in handling disputes according to client budgets and business plans. We are equally adept at conciliatory, conservative, and aggressive litigation strategies. We manage dispute resolution and negotiate settlement and coexistence agreements. Of particular importance, as counsel who are responsible for protecting some of the most famous marks in the world, we take a careful and creative approach to trademark enforcement that we have found to be not only the most likely to achieve favorable outcomes for our clients but also the least likely to cause public relations issues, which our clients find to be very effective.

Online Brand Protection and Anti-Counterfeiting

Hanson Bridgett takes a multi-pronged approach to brand protection, ensuring our clients have a variety of tools available and working to their advantage. We can assist clients with identifying, monitoring, and investigating unauthorized and infringing uses, and with takedown strategies directed not only at infringing content and infringers themselves, but also platforms, internet service providers, and domain hosts.

Given the proliferation of online fraud, we are adept at quickly stopping online scams of various kinds or other infringement of intellectual property rights online. Our solutions are efficient, scalable, and adaptable to the rapidly evolving online landscape and cutting-edge issues. We also advise clients on managing domain name portfolios and name reservation programs, and Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) issues. We have deep expertise with Uniform Domain-Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) complaints, Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) actions, and other domain name dispute claims/submissions on behalf of clients.

For many of our clients, we handle trademark enforcement globally, including against grey market sellers. Hanson Bridgett routinely handles anti-counterfeiting enforcement, starting with recording trademark registrations with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (USCBP), communicating with USCBP agents about potential counterfeit goods and supporting criminal enforcement, and pursing actions before the International Trade Commission (ITC) and other alternative venues.

Corollary Areas

Our full-service platform allows seamless coordination with corporate, litigation, employment, data privacy, tax, and regulatory practices for holistic protection. This 360-degree view enables us to analyze issues from multiple angles and offer solutions that maximize value, including:

• Advertising, Media, and Marketing. Our attorneys engage in a breadth of advice and risk assessments for advertising, media, and marketing, from clearing use of media properties and assets to advising on specific advertising statements and claims—including green marketing. Our attorneys have also assisted companies and advertising agencies in complex licensing arrangements, brand activations, product placements and traditional scripted content development.
• False Advertising and Product Liability Litigation. We have counseled on and handled disputes before agencies such as the National Advertising Division and, in addition to traditional trademark, trade dress, copyright, and unfair competition claims, also handle complex false advertising litigation and product liability matters, understanding that brand reputation challenges often intersect across multiple areas of law and require coordinated legal strategies. Our experience includes defending and pursuing claims involving competitive advertising, product claims substantiation, and reputation management where trademark infringement, unfair competition, and broader commercial disputes converge to protect our clients' market position and brand integrity.
• Brand Collaborations, Influencers, and Rights of Publicity and Privacy. Our team frequently represents both brands and content creators in the content development, production and marketing space. We have negotiated production services agreements, assisted brand owners in partnering with celebrity endorsers in transactions from simple influencer arrangements to complicated long-term arrangements.
• Licensing and Distribution. Our attorneys are well-versed in brand licensing and distribution agreements—and strategic advice regarding these arrangements. We regularly advise on, draft, and negotiate brand licensing agreements in contexts such as distribution, merchandising, brand extension, co-branding, co-manufacturing, joint ventures, strategic partnerships, and so on. We also have experience litigating breaches of license agreements.
• M&A Due Diligence & Corporate Transactions. Our interdisciplinary approach seamlessly integrates with corporate teams to deliver comprehensive IP analysis for mergers, acquisitions, and strategic transactions. Our services include comprehensive due diligence reviews, chain of title analysis, trademark and copyright recordation, portfolio valuation, analysis of IP agreements that might impact deal scope or value, and strategic IP counseling. We assist startups preparing for acquisition by identifying and addressing potential IP issues that could impact valuation, while helping acquiring companies understand the scope and strength of target IP assets. Our holistic advice is geared toward maximizing value for both buyers and sellers, attracting investors and strategic partners, ensuring seamless IP integration, and positioning clients for successful transactions and long-term growth.

Representative Industries

• Blockchain, FinTech, and Open Source
• Consumer Products, Retail, and Manufacturing
• Entertainment and Media
• E-commerce and Online Platforms
• Fashion and Beauty
• Food, Beverage, Wine, and Alcohol
• Social Media and Online Platforms
• Hardware, Software, Technology, and Services
• Life Sciences, Pharmaceuticals, and Biotechnology
• Financial Services
• Real Estate, Travel, and Hospitality
• Nonprofit and Benefit Corporations
• Professional Services

Awards and Recognition

Hanson Bridgett's trademark team has been recognized by leading industry publications and peer organizations, including the World Intellectual Property Review, World Trademark Review, Best Lawyers in America, and Super Lawyers. Our attorneys regularly serve on INTA committees, author leading publications, present at major legal and business conferences, and lecture at top law schools and universities, further contributing to thought leadership and industry innovation.

According to the World Trademark Review, Hanson Bridgett is known for its “outstanding-quality trademark work” as well as our “close partnerships with in-house counsel that lead to optimal prosecution and enforcement efforts.”

Quotes and Accolades

“AmLaw 200 firm Hanson Bridgett has a dedicated following of trademark customers, including numerous well-known brands with global portfolios… active across all industries, it offers a high-quality service not just in California where it is based, but nationwide and overseas.”
World Trademark Review 1000 (2023)

“The team at Hanson Bridgett are responsive, well organised and equipped to handle the full scope of trademark services. They are good about looking around corners and, very helpfully, try to anticipate client questions and needs when delivering analyses and advice. Their advice is practical and avoids unlikely lawyerly hypotheticals.”
World Trademark Review (2024)

Los Angeles market leader and partner Raffi Zerounian “has a stellar knowledge of all aspects of trademark law and deftly manages all trademark needs. He gives trustworthy, practical and strategic advice, and is a fierce advocate for his clients, whose interests he really takes to heart. He’s a go-to for high-stakes matters.” San Francisco partner Garner Weng is acknowledged for being “a responsive partner with an unwavering service focus and customer-first mentality.”

Notable Recognition:

• World Trademark Review – Silver Band recognition nationally for both "Prosecution and Strategy" and "Enforcement and Litigation" for seven consecutive years; Global Leader, Gold Band California, and Bronze Band California individual recognitions
• World Intellectual Property Review – Leader's List individual recognition
• Best Lawyers in America and "Ones to Watch" – Litigation and Intellectual Property individual recognitions
• Super Lawyers – IP Litigation individual recognitions

Key Contacts

Raffi Zerounian

Los Angeles Market Leader

Partner

Los Angeles, CA

Garner Weng

Partner

San Francisco, CA

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