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Full-Text Articles in Law
Trademark Morality, Mark Bartholomew
Trademark Morality, Mark Bartholomew
Journal Articles
This Article challenges the modern rationale for trademark rights. According to both judges and legal scholars, what matters in adjudicating trademark cases are the economic consequences, particularly for consumers, of a defendant’s use of a mark, not the use’s morality. Nevertheless, under this utilitarian facade, there are also at work judicial assessments of highly charged questions of right and wrong. Recent findings in the field of moral psychology demonstrate the influence of particular moral triggers in all areas of human decisionmaking, often operating without conscious awareness. These triggers influence judges deciding trademark disputes. A desire to punish bad actors, particularly …
Confusion Isn't Everything, Mark Mckenna, William Mcgeveran
Confusion Isn't Everything, Mark Mckenna, William Mcgeveran
Journal Articles
The typical shorthand justification for trademark rights centers on avoiding consumer confusion. But in truth, this encapsulation mistakes a method for a purpose: confusion merely serves as an indicator of the underlying problems that trademark law seeks to prevent. Other areas of law accept confusion or mistake of all kinds, intervening only when those errors lead to more serious harms. Likewise, every theory of trademark rights considers confusion troubling solely because it threatens more fundamental values such as fair competition or informative communication. In other words, when it comes to the deep purposes of trademark law, confusion isn’t everything. Yet …
An Intersystemic View Of Intellectual Property And Free Speech, Mark Bartholomew, John Tehranian
An Intersystemic View Of Intellectual Property And Free Speech, Mark Bartholomew, John Tehranian
Journal Articles
Intellectual property regimes operate in the shadow of the First Amendment. By deeming a particular activity as infringing, the law of copyright, trademark, and the right of publicity all limit communication. As a result, judges and lawmakers must delicately balance intellectual property rights with expressive freedoms. Interestingly, each intellectual property regime strikes the balance between ownership rights and free speech in a dramatically different way. Despite a large volume of scholarship on intellectual property rights and free speech considerations, this Article represents the first systematic effort to detail, analyze, and explain the divergent evolution of expression-based defenses in copyright, trademark, …