The Changing Contours of International Protection for Trade Dress

Abstract

The protection of trade dress has never been popular among academic commentators. At the international level, such protection has also been underexplored in trademark literature. Taking advantage of the forum provided by the Florida State University Business Review Symposium, this article uses the "law, technology and society" approach to take stock of three sets of notable developments affecting the international protection for product packaging trade dress over the past three decades—namely, those sparked by legislative, technological and social change.

This article begins by exploring the changes to the international standards for protecting trade dress since the adoption of the TRIPS Agreement. It then examines the impact of new technological developments in this area of law, focusing primarily on the challenges and complications posed by 3D printing and artificial intelligence. It further discusses the growing attention on sustainable development and consumers' increased preference for reusing, repairing and recycling products. This article concludes by explaining why the protection of product packaging trade dress has presented difficult challenges, especially at the international level. It also explains why this area would be fertile for more in-depth scholarly inquiry.