A Brand Theory of Trademark Law
60 Pages Posted: 6 Apr 2010 Last revised: 28 Oct 2015
There are 2 versions of this paper
A Brand Theory of Trademark Law
From Trademarks to Brands
Date Written: April 6, 2010
Abstract
Trademark law is incoherent, and it fails to manage all the interests at stake in the modern business environment. This failure flows from a core misunderstanding. Trademark law has not grasped that is managing brands, not trademarks. In this article, Professor Deven Desai develops a new theory of trademarks which provides trademark law with a way out of its current confusion. Professor Desai argues that trademark law really protects brands and must fully embrace this fact. He demonstrates how his brand theory of trademark law will avoid the incoherence and problems from which trademark currently suffers and offers a framework to understand the purpose, function, and scope of trademark law.
Published version, titled 'From Trademarks to Brands', Florida Law Review, Vol. 64, No. 4, pp. 981-1044, 2012.
Keywords: Trademark, Brands, Confusion, Law and Economics, Marketing
JEL Classification: B20, D80, D82, D83, K00, K10, K19, K20, L10, L14, L20, L21, L11, L12, L40, L41, L42, M3, M30, M31
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation