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Full-Text Articles in Intellectual Property Law
Non-Traditional Trademarks: The Error Costs Of Making An Exception The Rule, Glynn Lunney
Non-Traditional Trademarks: The Error Costs Of Making An Exception The Rule, Glynn Lunney
Faculty Scholarship
Over the last sixty years, courts and the USPTO have engaged in an ill-advised expansion of trademark subject matter. Where once only words or emblems attached to a product could serve as a trademark, today a product’s design or packaging itself may receive such protection. This expansion was and is a mistake. There may indeed be rare cases where a product’s design or packaging conveys brand-specific information and could receive protection without impairing competitor’s ability to offer substitutes. Such cases are the exception and not the rule, however. Extending the strong legal presumptions and property-like protection trademark law provides to …