Digital Commons Network^™

Owning Mark(Et)S, Mark A. Lemley, Mark P. Mckenna

Mark P. McKenna

Trademark owners regularly rely on claims that the defendant is “free riding” on their mark by making money using that mark, foreclosing an opportunity for the trademark owner to capture that revenue. We analyze those free riding claims and find them wanting. The empirical data shows that defendants in unrelated markets can benefit from using a well‐known mark, but that neither mark owners nor consumers suffer any injury from that use. A legal claim that a defendant is unjustly benefiting by using a plaintiff’s mark is hollow unless it is accompanied by a theory of why that benefit should rightly …