Effective March 15, 2010, the Council of Better Business Bureaus will increase the fee it charges for CBBB Corporate Partners to file an NAD challenge from $2,500 to $3,500. This is the first increase in the Corporate Partner filing fee since 2005. Non-partners must pay between $6,000 and $20,000, depending on the gross annual revenue of the company. A copy of the CBBB’s announcement is available on the NAD website.
Despite this increase, the cost of bringing a challenge before the NAD is still significantly less than the cost of bringing a lawsuit under § 43(a) of the Lanham Act. Click here for an article that provides a detailed analysis of the options available to a company that wants to challenge a competitor’s claims.