[RPM Frank]

I hate to say it but I've been down this road before on one of my designs, so here's my 2 cents.

Use an attourney in your state and make sure you file there, it's the defendants responsibility to travel to "wherever" in it's own defense, do not let a firm from the state where the infringing company is based sell you on the idea that it would be better served there. The court systems are far more partial to residents of thier own state regardless of the case.

Research your lawyer, make sure they have had good success in this area before. No lawyer can be everywhere all the time so a good firm will have a para-legal act as your first line of communication. The para-legals are really the backbone to any well structured case, the lawyers job is to take his/her knowledge of the law and make it work for you, the para-legals are the ones who research and outline the information for the lawyer to work with.

Make sure your lawyer has a plan of attack for when the the company thats using your image on it's advertising tries to separate itself from the company that created the advertisement for them. "This is going to happen the moment you step before the judge". Your lawyer should be prepared to ask for exactly how many copies of the image are in circulation and ask to be awarded a royalty fee per item right then and there even if the money needs to be escrowed with the courts. Ultimately the fight is going to come down to between you and the advertising firm, but at least you'll have the complete cooperation of the manufacturer in speeding up the works.

Structure your legals fees based off the total award at the end of the case, the larger the settlement the bigger the % the firm gets, that will keep them motivated.

Like I said earlier, just my 2 cents but this does really come from past experience.

Good Luck.