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The Ubit: Leveling An Uneven Playing Field Or Tilting A Level One?, Michael S. Knoll Oct 2007

The Ubit: Leveling An Uneven Playing Field Or Tilting A Level One?, Michael S. Knoll

All Faculty Scholarship

After grateful alumni acquired the Mueller Spaghetti Company on behalf of New York University, and the courts held that the university did not have to pay tax on the pasta maker’s income, Mueller’s competitors cried foul. Congress responded to their pleas and enacted the unrelated business income tax (UBIT). The UBIT subjects an otherwise tax-exempt entity, such as a charitable institution or a religious organization, to tax on its income from a trade or business that is not substantially related to the organization’s tax-exempt purpose. The UBIT is widely viewed as leveling the playing field between taxable for-profit businesses and …


The Normative Foundations Of Trademark Law, Mark Mckenna Jun 2007

The Normative Foundations Of Trademark Law, Mark Mckenna

Journal Articles

This paper challenges the conventional wisdom that trademark law traditionally sought to protect consumers and enhance marketplace efficiency. Contrary to widespread contemporary understanding, early trademark cases were decidedly producer-centered. Trademark infringement claims, like all unfair competition claims, were intended to protect producers from illegitimate attempts to divert their trade. Consumer deception was relevant in these cases only to the extent it was the means by which a competitor diverted a producer's trade. Moreover, American courts from the very beginning protected a party against improperly diverted trade in part by recognizing a narrow form ofproperty rights in trademarks. Those rights were …