Surveys for legal evidence
More than six decades of experience
Since 1949/50, the Allensbach Institute has provided expert opinions based on surveys in almost 1,000 legal cases involving trademark and competition law.
The legal issues most frequently covered with surveys—either commissioned by private clients or by the courts themselves—are:
- Acquired distinctiveness, secondary meaning
- Likelihood of confusion
- Use as a trade mark
- Well-known mark, mark with a reputation
- Exploitation of reputation
- Misleading of consumers, deception
- Geographical indications
Other Allensbach surveys for legal evidence have focused on areas such as press law (whether a statement is understood as a factual statement or an expression of opinion), antitrust law (defining a market empirically, substitution), determining the extent of damages, as well as the sociology of law.
Survey evidence can be ascertained for both individual countries (e.g. Germany, other EU member states and beyond, for example, Switzerland) and on a multinational basis. When surveys evidence is needed for several countries, the Allensbach Institute provides the study design, central coordination of the fieldwork and the expert report.
Some of the target groups ("relevant consumers") most frequently surveyed are:
- The total population of a particular country
- Purchasers of certain products or services
- Professionals from a wide variety of business sectors or professions
- Wholesale, intermediate and retail trade
Methods
Face-to-face surveys by the Allensbach Institute offer the best possibilities for conducting tests using original products, photographs, color samples, etc. In certain cases, surveys for legal evidence can also be conducted online or by telephone.
Publications on surveys for legal evidence
Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach (2011). Survey of Market Participants Who Use the CTM System: The Findings of a Survey among CTM Applicants/Owners and their Professional Representatives in All EU Member States. Commissioned by the European Commission (Internal Market and Services Directorate General) and the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law. Download of the study. Link to the Internal Market and Services DG website.
Niedermann, A. (2008). "The Use of Surveys as Legal Evidence," in Donsbach, W., and M. Traugott (eds.), Handbook of Public Opinion Research, 515-525. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Niedermann, A. (2006). "Empirische Erkenntnisse zur Verkehrsdurchsetzung," GRUR, no. 5/2006: 367-374.
Niedermann, A., and M. Schneider (2002). "Der Beitrag der Demoskopie zur Entscheidfindung im schweizerischen Markenrecht," sic!, no. 12/2002: 815-840.
For more information about surveys for legal evidence, please contact:
Dr. Anne Niedermann
For information on other areas of expertise at the Allensbach Institute, please click here.
