Law Commons^™

Fiduciary Duty And The Public Interest, Cheryl L. Wade

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Professor Tamar Frankel’s excellent book, Fiduciary Law, is a thorough and comprehensive look at the fiduciary-law forest. My contribution to the Symposium on The Role of Fiduciary Law and Trust in the Twenty-First Century is one leaf on one branch of one tree in the forest that Professor Frankel so expertly navigates. In this Essay, I explore the fiduciary relationship between corporate directors and officers and the shareholders they serve. I examine how the breach of fiduciary duties owed to shareholders has the power to dramatically impact non-shareholder groups.

Professor Frankel accurately observes that “[f]iduciary duties are anchored …

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

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 …