Info/Law

I am pleased to report that my former law firm, Foley Hoag LLP, has reached a favorable settlement in its trademark infringement lawsuit against competing law firm Foley & Lardner.  (Hat top to Trademark Blog.)  Under the agreement, the latter firm promises not to call itself just plain “Foley” — which presumably means an awful lot of expensive stationery emblazoned with a snazzy “Foley” logo will now become scrap paper.

The confusing similarity of the names was endurable when the firms were primarily regional powerhouses (based in Boston and Milwaukee, respectively).  But as both expanded their reach nationally — and especially when Foley & Lardner acquired a small Boston firm and so opened an office on Foley Hoag’s home turf — conflict became inevitable.  Add to that efforts by Foley & Lardner to rebrand as “Foley,” including an attempt (rejected by the PTO) to register “FOLEY” as a service mark, and conflict was, er, inevitabler.

This is a pretty standard problem, and trademark law provides a quite sensible solution on these facts: since both firms have other parts of their names that distinguish them from one another, require the use of those additional identifiers.  That’s what the settlement achieves.

Filed under: Court Decisions, Trademarks