Trademarks – 5608

This course will consider how marketers secure and enforce trademark rights. Trademarks are the indicators that consumers rely upon to determine the origin of goods and services. For example, the COCA-COLA and COKE names, the color scheme of its label, and at times the shape of its bottle all tell you that you are drinking a particular type of soft drink (i.e. COKE, not PEPSI). All can be trademarks.

The course will focus on U.S. federal trademark law, but will also look at state and international trademark law as well as related areas such as false advertising, publicity rights, and cybersquatting. This course will provide a solid foundation for students interested in practicing trademark law (application, enforcement, licensing, or litigation) or more general intellectual property law. It will also be useful to attorneys who do any work with trademark-dependent industries such as retail sales, advertising, or media and entertainment. Finally and more generally, trademark law offers excellent case studies of the interaction between law, culture, and technology, and of the evolution of traditional doctrine under pressure from rapid changes in surrounding circumstances.