Legal Question in Entertainment Law in California

Re: What is the statute of limitations on trademark claims

Trademark infringement, has no specific SOL for federally registered trademarks (per the Lanham Act). Instead, courts must apply the SOL from the most analogous applicable state law. This means you never know for sure what the applicable SOL period is. Depending on the specific facts, the court may apply the SOL of a state fraud statute, a trade-dress statute, a state trademark statute, a deceptive trade practices statute, etc. -- whatever the court determines is "most analogous."

In general, where an infringement is an ongoing and continuous event, all the acts within the event are viewed as one infringing act (similar to defamation's "single publication" rule). The applicable SOL period, however, does not start to run until the conclusion of an ongoing infringement. Some courts hold that a plaintiff can sue for the entire chain of infringing acts so long as a case is filed within the SOL (for instance, a plaintiff can sue for 10 years of copyright infringement so long as the plaintiff files suit within three years of the last infringing act), but other courts hold that the plaintiff can only sue for those infringing acts that actually occurred within the SOL period.

If the infringement is such that the copyright or trademark owner could not have reasonably discovered the infringement until some later date after the infringement occurred, then the SOL is tolled until the owner actually discovers the infringement, or reasonably should have discovered it, whichever comes first. In an Internet context, this could result in the SOL being tolled in situations where an infringer somehow hides the infringement (such as by storing another's copyrighted work on a limited-access cyberspace database), or if search engines don't pick it up.

Re: What is the statute of limitations on trademark claims

Infringement of a federal trademark does not have a specific statute of limitations. Instead, courts often apply the most analogous state law, and so if you are several years (say, a decade or more) past the event, you won't have much of a case. There is also a legal doctrine called "laches" which, again, says you have a reasonable period during which you must take action. So, if you knew, or should have known, of a right, but didn't take action, your right becomes void. "Use it or lose it", as they say.

On the other hand, you may have a case based on a non-trademark theory because of the potentially "voidable" nature of the contract you signed when you were a minor, but this depends on the facts. If you wish to discuss this further, get in contact with me.

Re: What is the statute of limitations on trademark claims

How many years have gone by? Did you come up with the name or had any contribution to the name?