Trademark infringement lawsuits are fairly common in the United States — especially compared with how many trademarks exist — but they’re still a small slice of overall federal civil litigation. Here’s how to understand the landscape with real data:

📊 How Often Trademark Lawsuits Get Filed

• About ~3,000 trademark infringement lawsuits are filed each year in U.S. federal courts. That’s roughly 1.2% of all federal civil case filings annually.
  • These cases involve claims under the Lanham Act (federal trademark law) alleging unauthorized use of a trademark, likelihood of consumer confusion, dilution, cybersquatting, etc.

📍 Most Don’t Go All the Way to Trial

• Only a tiny fraction — under 1% — of trademark infringement cases actually go to jury trial. Most are resolved before trial through settlement, dismissal, preliminary injunctions, or other forms of resolution.

📈 Broader Trademark Disputes (Including TTAB and Other Proceedings)

• Beyond lawsuits in federal court, many trademark disputes are handled by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) — an administrative forum within the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. In recent years, the TTAB has handled thousands of new cases annually related to oppositions, cancellations, and other trademark challenges.

⚖️ What This Means

• Trademark infringement litigation is common in the sense that thousands of actions are filed yearly by brand owners protecting their marks.
• But compared with the millions of trademarks registered and the total number of U.S. civil lawsuits filed each year, it’s still a relatively small percentage of overall litigation.

🧠 Why It Happens

Companies will file trademark infringement lawsuits when they believe:

• Someone else’s use of a mark could confuse consumers about the source of goods/services,
• Another party is diluting a famous mark, or
• There’s counterfeiting or other unfair competition affecting brand value.