Candace Lynn Bell

Overview

Candace Lynn Bell focuses her practice on intellectual property matters for United States-based companies and individuals as well as foreign-based individuals and companies doing business in the United States. She has more than 20 years of experience in working with clients to develop and manage trademark and domain name portfolios on a national and international basis, including developing brands, policing marks, and portfolio and registration management. She advises clients in a broad range of industries including software, insurance, entertainment, food service, bakeries, consulting, aviation, construction, precious metal refining, and retail. Candace also has an active trademark litigation practice representing clients in front of the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board of the United States Patent and Trademark Office and in federal courts.

She has served as lead counsel for her clients in jurisdictions around the globe directing local counsel in connection with trademark disputes. Based in Buffalo, New York, Candace has more than 25 years of experience counseling Canadian businesses expanding into the United States on  intellectual property cross-border legal issues, including U.S. customs and corporation matters.

Representative Matters

• Represents a global performance consulting company as outside intellectual property counsel and manages the clients worldwide trademark portfolio and worldwide trademark litigation. By consolidating management of its worldwide portfolio and litigation with Candace and the Eckert Seamans IP team, the client is able to ensure its marks are protected worldwide in a uniform and cost-effective manner. Candace also manages the client’s trademark litigation across the globe, using extensive foreign local counsel contacts, so the client itself has not had to find reliable foreign local counsel in various jurisdictions worldwide.
• Kistner Concrete Products, Inc. v. Contech Arch Technologies, Inc., No. 92048733, TTAB (2011). Represented a concrete construction company in a cancellation proceeding against a trademark registration for a concrete arch shape. In a precedential decision, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board cancelled the registration on the grounds the mark was functional and therefore not entitled to registration. Upon successful cancellation, the registrant could no longer pursue trademark infringement claims against a company using the concrete arch shape.
• Avenza Systems Inc. v. Avencia Incorporated, No. 92046736, TTAB (2009). Represented a geospatial software company in a combined cancellation and opposition proceeding against a trademark registration and a pending trademark application for geospatial software on the grounds of a likelihood of confusion with the client’s already registered mark and trade name. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board cancelled the registration on the grounds the mark of the subject registration was likely to cause confusion with the client’s already registered mark. A second application for a nearly identical mark was successfully opposed on the same grounds.
• Represented several different online retailers and service providers in a number of domain name disputes regarding domain names that are likely to cause confusion with the clients’ registered trademarks in disputes under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy.

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Spotlight on . . . Candace Lynn Bell