Lisa Greenwald-Swire

If someone is ripping off your trademark, should you be grateful?

"Sometimes, infringers say that they are doing you a favor by purchasing your company's direct brand in a foreign jurisdiction," Greenwald-Swire said. "They say, 'I know you're going to expand to Canada. You want this, give me some money, or let me partner up with you.' Meanwhile, someone just hijacked your brand in a foreign jurisdiction."

These days, staying on top of all of these fast paced global machinations is a challenge.

Enforcing a trademark can be especially tricky when the alleged infringer claims legitimate rights to a name.

"Then you have to dig a little further," Greenwald-Swire said. "Are they just putting up family photos? When you're dealing with cybersquatting, the issue is intent. As you peel the onion, you can see folks showing their true colors and dig down into their real intent."

Focusing on worldwide trademark prosecution, enforcement and licensing, Greenwald-Swire represents such well-known brand owners as dating site eHarmony Inc., clothing brand TSE and mobile payment service Square Inc. She also handles unique domain name and Internet-related issues for her clients.

Consider the rapidly evolving world of so-called generic top-level domains, or GLTDs - those words that follow the well-known dot, as in dot-com.

"I see this as an increasing issue, with all of these new GTLDs that are all going to be launching," she said. "You don't need 500 possible extensions, but there is money to be made. Big money."

While the ubiquitous dot-com can be bought for a few dollars, Greenwald-Swire said, domain names such as dot-shop or dot-app can run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

All of these changes in the marketplace should put entrepreneurs on red alert, she said, adding, "You have to keep an eye out in the rest of the world. If you don't, when you want to step into China, India or Europe, they may have closed the doors, if you're not thinking about your intellectual property."

But, "Many people think, 'I just need to get to this benchmark,' and they are very focused on U.S. commerce," Greenwald-Swire said. "In reality, given how small the global environment has become, you have to address IP protection early on, or deal with the most expensive enforcement efforts after the fact."

In her universe, Greenwald-Swire said, "You do try to act like a visionary, knowing what the hot companies are and what the new technology is, and how it's going to affect your IP. Sitting here in Silicon Valley helps me stay on the pulse of that. It's a very fast-changing world."

- PAT BRODERICK