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The Myth Of Buick Aspirin: An Empirical Study Of Trademark Dilution By Product And Trade Names, Robert Brauneis, Paul J. Heald
The Myth Of Buick Aspirin: An Empirical Study Of Trademark Dilution By Product And Trade Names, Robert Brauneis, Paul J. Heald
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
Trademark dilution is a highly controversial cause of action that has been the subject of hundreds of law review articles, but no significant scientific work. We analyze 60 years of telephone white pages, corporate & LLC naming data, advertisements from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post, state and federal trademark databases, and all recorded dilution litigation. Our data suggest strongly that famous trademarks are frequently borrowed for use as trade names in services, but almost never as trade marks on products. Given that Congress based anti-dilution legislation on the assumption that uses like Buick Aspirin were …
Trademark Infringement, Trademark Dilution, And The Decline In Sharing Of Famous Brand Names: An Introduction And Empirical Study, Robert Brauneis, Paul J. Heald
Trademark Infringement, Trademark Dilution, And The Decline In Sharing Of Famous Brand Names: An Introduction And Empirical Study, Robert Brauneis, Paul J. Heald
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
This article provides an introduction to the study of brand-name sharing, and presents results from an empirical study of sharing rates among 131 famous brand names from 1940 through 2010, conducted through an examination of business names in the white pages telephone directories of Chicago, Philadelphia, and Manhattan. Perhaps the most dramatic finding of the study is that independent uses of the 131 brand names – that is, uses of those names by businesses other than those that made the names famous – have declined from 3000 to 1380 between 1960 and 2010, a 54% drop. The article then assesses …