With the expanding reach of social media, companies need to exercise caution when attempting to promote their brands or protect their marks online, according to a panel of intellectual property experts at Corporate Counsel’s 25th Annual General Counsel Conference.

Speaking on day two of the GC East event, Keith Weltsch, a partner at the intellectual property law firm Scully, Scott, Murphy & Presser, said statutory law surrounding social media is still evolving, and relevant legal remedies available to brand owners are not particularly solid. “Trademark law has not changed to reflect changes in the way that commerce is conducted via social media,” he said.

Major social media sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, will conduct an investigation into allegations of trademark abuse and may shut down an account or user page if appropriate. But the processes by which they make their decisions are not necessarily transparent, and their policies tend to take a limited view of what constitutes “abuse,” Weltsch said.

For that reason, brand owners should carefully consider, on a situation-by-situation basis, whether they should try to enforce their mark or just walk away. “It’s just not feasible from a cost perspective to go after every negative, unauthorized use of a brand,” said Peter Bernstein, also a partner at Scully, Scott, Murphy & Presse. “An aggressive approach to enforcing your trademark can backfire.”

In one highly publicized instance, for example, a Vermont folk artist who built a T-shirt business around the phrase “Eat More Kale” received a cease-and-desist letter from the fast-food chain Chick-fil-A, saying he was infringing the chain’s slogan “Eat Mor Chickin.” The artist, Bo Muller-Moore, decided to fight the company and received a groundswell of support and media attention. His legal representation is offering its services pro bono. A petition on Change.org has been circulated. The governor of Vermont has thrown support behind the artist. And Muller-Moore has posted an “Eat More Kale” Facebook page.

The Patent and Trademark Office, meanwhile, issued a “preliminary no” in April to Muller-Moore’s application to trademark his slogan. But the battle persists, since Muller-Moore has six months to respond to the PTO. And Chick-fil-A has been widely accused of trademark bullying.