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Consumer Protection Law Commons

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St. John's University School of Law

Law

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Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Consumer Protection Law

The Ethics Of Unbranding, Jeremy N. Sheff Jan 2011

The Ethics Of Unbranding, Jeremy N. Sheff

Faculty Publications

This Essay explores the ethical implications of the phenomenon of "unbranding" that has recently been discussed in popular and scholarly literature. It compares two extant definitions of unbranding and examines each under alternative ethical theories of trademark law, specifically deontological and consequentialist theories. With respect to each of these theories, the Essay examines the ethical questions raised by the existence of asymmetric information between brand owners and consumers. This includes asymmetries not only with regard to information about products, but also with regard to information about consumer decision-making processes. The latter asymmetry presents conflicts between deontological and consequentialist conclusions regarding …


Biasing Brands, Jeremy N. Sheff Jan 2011

Biasing Brands, Jeremy N. Sheff

Faculty Publications

The dominant search-costs model of trademark law posits that consumers choose products to satisfy their preferences by analytically mapping those preferences to product information that trademarks efficiently provide. This Article tests these descriptive claims against empirical and theoretical research in marketing and consumer psychology, particularly the concept of "brand equity": the value to a firm or its customers of a brand and of the firm's efforts to build and maintain that brand.

Internally complex brand equity models, juxtaposed with empirical findings in related psychology and marketing research, challenge the descriptive accuracy of the search-costs model. In particular, branding efforts can …


The (Boundedly) Rational Basis Of Trademark Liability, Jeremy N. Sheff Jan 2007

The (Boundedly) Rational Basis Of Trademark Liability, Jeremy N. Sheff

Faculty Publications

This article argues that trademark infringement and dilution are best understood as commercial behavior that manipulates the cognitive biases of consumers, and as such threatens to render their heuristic judgments persistently inaccurate. In this view, trademark liability—whether imposed under the label of infringement or dilution—serves neither to protect property rights of trademark owners, nor to protect them against the unfair trade practices of competitors, but to shape consumer markets in such a way as to conform to the innate cognitive processes of boundedly rational consumers. The trademark regime can thus be understood as a legal apparatus designed (albeit perhaps unconsciously) …