The first step in enforcing trademark rights is policing them. One of the easiest ways to police trademark rights is to enroll them in a Trademark Watch Service (information regarding Ladas & Parry’s Watch Service is available online at tmw.ladas.com. Such a service will, for a nominal fee, keep a “watch” on trademark and company name registers in the jurisdictions of interest (e.g., United States, United States and Canada, worldwide) and alert the trademark owner when another party attempts to adopt a confusingly similar trademark in respect of confusingly similar goods or services so that appropriate action may be taken. For example, when some unknown third party attempts to register the trademark in Mexico, which could effectively prevent the trademark owner from offering goods or services in Mexico under that name or mark, the trademark owner will want to take appropriate action.

In addition to a Trademark Watch service, it is important that the marketplace also be watched. This can be done by encouraging members of the trademark owner’s organization, including agents, employees, distributors and licensees, to keep a watchful eye on the market and to identify and report potential infringements. For example, one band’s official fan magazine encouraged its fans to send in photographs and explanations of uses of the band’s name worldwide, some of which were then published in the magazine while others could be investigated for possible infringing use.