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Trademark monitoring and enforcement strategies must keep pace with the rapidly evolving landscape of IP infringement and brand management. How should IP owners approach this challenging digital landscape, and what role do technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), play in brand protection today?
To keep pace with the complex digital landscape of infringement, IP professionals require the support of powerful solutions to protect their brand rights online. Part of the challenge is that “online” brand protection encompasses a wide range of interlinked disciplines—from IP to consumer rights, unfair competition, data privacy, and internet law. It also operates against a complex background of technological evolution, offline infringement, and fast-moving global trade.
In our recent webinar on ‘ Trademark and Brand Protection Hot Topics,' David Godoy and Brian Looney discussed the current trends and challenges facing brand owners on the internet, and the difference that combining technology, including AI, with human insight could make to protection and enforcement efforts. Here, we summarize the key contents from their discussion.
AI Increased the Online Threat—Could it Also Provide the Solution?
In the current landscape, it's become much harder to pinpoint who the infringer is, where infringement is taking place, and what role website platforms are playing in contributing to or facilitating these types of infringement. That requires us to develop new skills and solutions, including harnessing the latest technologies to develop innovative online monitoring and enforcement tools.
Just as bad-faith actors are using AI to target brands, AI also has a role to play in helping to identify and stamp out the threat.
4 Four Key Brand Protection Challenges Facing IP Owners
Branding helps companies build customer loyalty and obtain the privileged status as the preferred choice for certain goods or services. Infringement can irrevocably damage this relationship of trust by putting doubt in the consumer's mind about the quality, safety, or authenticity of branded goods. This can occur following:
- #1 Reputational Damage/Tarnishment: Once
a company's reputation is damaged, it can be difficult to
bounce back.
- #2 Genericism/Blurring: Unchecked
infringement can also lead to the genericism of previously
distinctive trademark rights.
- #3 Quality/Compliance: Counterfeit goods
can undermine consumer confidence in branded products, while
unauthorized or unethical use of public sector branding can damage
trust in public health and other organizations.
- #4 Fraud/Abuse: Phishing and other
cybersecurity threats impact financial and professional
organizations and their customers.
As we heard from the brand owners, enforcement partners, and IP service providers we spoke to at INTA and IACC this year, each of these four threats is not only prevalent but also continuing to grow. This, in turn, has led to a bigger emphasis on bridging the gap between online and offline monitoring and enforcement, as well as a growing desire and expectation of more advanced technological solutions for integrated brand protection.
- How and When Will AI Change the Game?
Just as demand is rising among brand professionals for all-in-one AI solutions, so too is frustration about the capabilities of the AI technologies that exist today. In our view, this is because many of the AI-based brand monitoring technologies marketed by vendors are not fully integrated with brand protection expert-led services. We believe this integration is crucial, since the AI-based technologies developed and tested today can only tackle part of the monitoring and enforcement challenge.
Digital brand enforcement alone requires the management of multiple channels, systems, and partners—so you might have an effective AI-based tool or process for identifying IP infringement but you need another tool or process for lodging complaints (takedowns) to platform owners. A solution that integrates these two processes not only saves valuable time but also maximizes the insights and abilities of all assets in the fight to protect brand rights online—including that of the human expert.
43% The number of trademark respondents to our 2025 Industry Outlook Research who are currently using AI solutions for digital brand protection.
When asked why they adopted AI solutions:
- 77% are actively seeking ways to save time and costs,
- 64% believe it will forever transform the role of IP professionals,
- 42% are interested in any technology that can add new efficiencies, and
- 39% invested out of curiosity to measure quality and potential benefits
- AI that Augments the Human Expert
The internet is ever-expanding, shifting, and evolving, and technology plays a vital role in tracking change. AI has the power to capture, analyze, and centralize data in seconds, eliminating what were once manual processes and freeing IP professionals up to concentrate on delivering value, such as actions and ideas.
However, human experts still have a pivotal function overseeing this technological process, whether that be validating workflows, translating data into strategic activity, or measuring return on investment. After all, ‘shiny' new AI tools are only helpful if they deliver real and meaningful results.
Searching for the Best Strategy for Digital Brand Protection
We believe that by integrating AI efficiency and human expertise into our monitoring and case management technologies, we can deliver more targeted results and more tailored insights, as well as productivity gains for brand owners.
Discover Our AI Roadmap
Questel's approach to AI development is human-centered and IP-industry-specific. Just as we believe AI holds vast and unique potential to deliver new forms of productivity for IP professionals, we also believe in the need to invest in secure, transparent, and ethical software development.
The three killer pillars of our approach:
- Accuracy: We leverage proprietary generative AI models and open-source models fine-tuned with prompts from our in-house experts to ensure peak performance for our clients.
- Transparency: We inform users whenever AI is used and provide them with the means to verify AI responses.
- Data Security: All our models are fine-tuned and optimized using our own data or public information (patent, trademark, and design texts)—we do not train our AI solutions using confidential client information.
- Our Approach to Digital Brand Protection
IP professionals are on the frontline of the battle to protect brands against the fast-moving threats of counterfeiting, trademark infringement, unfair competition, and reputational damage online. To succeed, they need to build an arsenal of monitoring and enforcement assets, technologies, and stakeholders, from IP registrations and trademark monitoring tools to private investigators, law enforcement, customs officials, internet providers, and platform owners.
Our combined online brand protection case management and take-down brand protection solution provides a single digital platform to coordinate brand protection efforts following a four-step process:
- #Step 1: Define the scope and monitored channels—easily bundle with additional IP services, such as offline enforcement.
- #Step 2: Workflow adapted to risk exposure and strategy—we combine tried-and-trusted technologies, automated workflows, and human intelligence to design customized solutions for our clients.
- #Step 3: Pre-selection, approval, and enforcement—our experts will work with you to ensure cost-effective allocation of resources and draw on our existing relationships with platforms and policy-making organizations to advocate on your behalf.
- #Step 4: Identify and measure key success
metrics—you can track the effectiveness of activities in our
dedicated content management system at any time, and our analysts
will provide regular reviews to help you hone your
strategy.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
