Principles of Trademark Law
Authors:
Schechter, Roger E. / Thomas, John R.
Edition:
1st
Copyright Date:
2021
17 chapters
have results for trademark
Chapter 9 Trademarks on the Internet 102 results (showing 5 best matches)
- As the Second Circuit has explained, “[c]ybersquatting involves the registration as domain names of well-known trademarks by non-trademark holders who then try to sell the names back to the trademark owners.” The Sixth Circuit offered a more expansive definition saying that “ ‘cybersquatting’ occurs when a person other than the trademark holder registers the domain name of a well-known trademark and then attempts to profit from this by either ransoming the domain name back to the trademark holder or by using the domain name to divert business from the trademark holder to the domain name holder.”
- With commerce comes trademarks. As soon as firms began to offer goods or services over the Internet, they began to use trademarks. Not long thereafter, they began to fight with each over the use of those trademarks. Many of the issues that have come up—and that will come up in the future—involving the use of trademarks on the Internet are routine and familiar trademark disputes. Old wine in new bottles, if you will. For instance, if someone tries to sell cameras over the World Wide Web and calls those cameras MINULTO brand on its web page, when the owner of the MINOLTA mark brings suit for infringement and dilution, the analysis will be identical to any other trademark controversy.
- In those early days, in an effort to reclaim their trademarks from cybersquatters without paying the ransom demanded, trademark owners had no choice but to sue under conventional trademark doctrines. In their search for a viable theory, they hit upon claims of trademark dilution. One of the leading cases dealing with such a claim is
- was a victory for the trademark owner, several aspects of the opinion suggested that dilution law would not be an effective tool against cybersquatters in all or even most cases. First, while the PANAVISION trademark is fairly clearly a famous mark, in many cases, a trademark owner challenging a cybersquatter might not be able to demonstrate the requisite fame.
- Alternatively, the owner of a non-commercial website might want to use trademarks in meta tags if the site offers information about or criticism of the trademark owner. For example, a website devoted to the advocacy of gun control might include the trademarks of the NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION in meta tags to attract web surfers who use that trademark as a search term. In addition, a firm might wish to list its competitors’ marks in meta tags so that parties searching for the competitor will also learn of the existence of their website as a potential alternative. For example, the company that sells ADIDAS footwear might want to use the NIKE trademark in a meta tag because its website might make comparisons between its shoes and those sold by Nike.
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Chapter 7 Fair Use, Other Affirmative Defenses and Remedies 149 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Not surprisingly, therefore, such resale is immune from attack as trademark infringement. This doctrine is conventionally known as the “first sale exhaustion” principle. Under this rule, once a trademark owner sells trademarked goods, the buyer is free to resell those goods to others without having to remove the trademarks. As the Ninth Circuit summarized, “the right of a producer to control distribution of its trademarked product does not extend beyond the first sale of the product. Resale by the first purchaser of the original article under the producer’s trademark is neither trademark infringement nor unfair competition.”
- In a similar case, the Second Circuit held that the owner of the HALLS trademark for cough drops could enjoin a wholesaler from selling any cough drops past their freshness expiration date, declaring “[d]istribution of a product that does not meet the trademark holder’s quality control standards may result in the devaluation of the mark by tarnishing its image. If so, the non-conforming product is deemed for Lanham Act purposes not to be the genuine product of the holder, and its distribution constitutes trademark infringement.” However, as the Third Circuit has cautioned, “ ‘quality control’ is not a talisman the mere utterance of which entitles the trademark owner to judgment. . . . Rather, the test is whether the quality control procedures established by the trademark owner are likely to result in differences between the products such that consumer confusion regarding the sponsorship of the products could injure the trademark owner’s goodwill.” ...the original trademark, because...
- After a trademark owner sells trademarked goods the buyer may wish to resell those goods to others. Obviously, the trademark owner often anticipates that such reselling will take place and may even expressly or impliedly authorize it. For instance, when a manufacturer such as Procter & Gamble (P & G) sells CREST brand toothpaste to a retailer, such as the CVS or WALGREEN’S pharmacy chains, P & G expects that the drugstore will resell those branded tubes of toothpaste to the public. Treating the resale of the goods by CVS as trademark infringement would be absurd, even though CVS does not own the CREST trademark. The drugstore is reselling the goods with the implied permission of the manufacturer, the goods are “genuine” CREST products, and there is no risk of either consumer confusion or injury to the trademark owner by such sales.
- This first sale exhaustion rule is not limited to authorized resales by firms in a formal chain of distribution. It applies even when no subsequent resales are anticipated or even contemplated by the trademark owner. This is why it is not trademark infringement for you to sell your old MERCEDES automobile with the trademark hood ornament still visible, even though you are neither an authorized Mercedes dealer nor the owner of the MERCEDES mark. Even when trademarked goods are diverted by wholesalers to unauthorized retail outlets, such as discounters, it is not trademark infringement for those discounters to sell those goods, despite the displeasure or objections of the trademark owner.
- case, courts usually require repackagers to observe four requirements if they wish to use the original merchant’s trademark. First, they must disclose the fact that the product has been repackaged. Second, they must reveal their own name. Third, they must declare that they are not in any way affiliated with the trademark owner. Finally, they must not give “undue prominence” to the trademark. Moreover, if the rebottling or repackaging significantly lessens the quality of the goods and the rebottler or repackager retains the original trademark, some authority suggests that the trademark owner might have a valid claim for trademark dilution of the tarnishment variety.
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Chapter 8 Trademark Assignments and Licensing 66 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Where there are ambiguities in the terms of a trademark license, ordinary principles of contract law will control any dispute over those terms. While most trademark licenses will be reduced to writing, there is no requirement that they must be, and an oral license agreement is valid. Where necessary, courts may even imply a trademark license based on the dealings of the parties. After a trademark license is terminated, the licensee must stop using the mark. Continued use of a trademark by an ex-licensee is actionable trademark infringement, a situation which comes up with some regularity when franchisees terminate their agreement but continue to operate out of facilities with signage that bears the franchisor’s trademarks.
- Trademarks are transferable. They can be bought and sold like other business assets. The outright sale of a trademark is known as an “assignment.” There is, however, a catch. The law is clear that a trademark can only be sold “with the accompanying goodwill” of the underlying business and that it is not permissible to assign a trademark “in gross,” which means independently of the associated goodwill.
- Where a trademark owner goes bankrupt, the trustee in bankruptcy succeeds to all the assets owned by that party. This includes both physical assets and intangibles such as trademarks. As a result, the trustee will be able to convey both the trademark and the related goodwill to any third party willing to pay for it. Trustees are also subject to the rule against assignments in gross, however, and they cannot validly convey the trademarks independently of the goodwill. Where the trustee sells the entire business, it has been held that the trademarks will impliedly pass to the buyer even if no mention is made about trademarks in the contract of sale.
- Licensing is a fundamental pillar of the franchise business model. As you may know, most restaurants operating under the MCDONALD’S trademark are not owned by the McDonald’s Corporation, but rather by independent operators who have a license to use its famous trademark, and pay for the privilege. Similarly, most gas stations operating under the EXXON trademark are not owned by ExxonMobil, but by independent business people. Even outside the franchising context, trademark licensing is prevalent. Many trademarked toys, packaged foods, drugs, and cosmetic
- There is one form of modern trademark licensing that fits poorly with the traditional requirement of quality control. Many trademark owners license their marks for use on “promotional goods” such as T-shirts, hats or jackets. The underlying mark usually has nothing to do with clothing. Often it will be the trademark of a professional sports team, or perhaps of a college or university. Increasingly, however, it may be the trademark of a company that makes heavy equipment, food or drugs, or computers. For instance, it would not be uncommon to see baseball caps emblazoned with the JOHN DEERE trademark that is ordinarily used for farm machinery, or to see T-shirts with word and logo marks for BEN AND JERRY’S ice cream. As we saw in an earlier chapter, modern cases take the view that unauthorized use of trademarks on such promotional goods is infringing, and thus the manufacturers of such goods need trademark licenses to avoid infringement liability.
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Chapter 5 Trademark Infringement, Counterfeiting and False Advertising 175 results (showing 5 best matches)
- As we have seen in previous chapters, a merchant who selects the right kind of trade-identifying symbol and appropriates it in the right kind of way is given trademark rights in that symbol. Those rights are essentially a form of legally enforced exclusivity—a limited property right if you prefer —forbidding others to use the trademark in certain ways. It follows that the unauthorized use of another party’s trademark will be actionable as trademark infringement. There is, however, a lot of law hiding behind that word “sometimes.”
- Because the Lanham Act is designed to confer nationwide rights in trademarks one might think that the problems of “geographically remote” trademark rights do not arise where one party has obtained a federal trademark registration. A federal trademark registration, after all, is designed to confer nationwide rights. However, there are
- As the previous chapters have explained, one of the primary functions of trademarks is aiding consumers in relocating goods that have pleased them in the past. The chief vice of trademark infringement is that it misleads consumers into purchasing the “wrong” product. This is unfair to the consumer who does not get what he or she was expecting, and it is unfair to the merchant who owns the trademark because it deprives that merchant of an expected sale. For either of these harms to result, however, there must be some risk that the consumer will be confused into thinking that the defendant’s product has some connection with the owner of the mark. It is for this reason that the central concept in all trademark infringement litigation is the concept of “likelihood of confusion.”
- Intent is not an element of trademark infringement. A defendant can be found liable and enjoined even if it is pure of heart and adopted its trademark wholly ignorant of the plaintiff’s prior use and superior rights.
- Defendants are often successful in refuting a claim of bad faith by showing that they conducted a trademark search before adopting the mark in question, or that they relied on the advice of counsel. On the other hand, if counsel advises against the use of a mark, or indicates that a more thorough trademark search would be in order,
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Chapter 1 Introduction to the Law of Trademarks 1 69 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Almost any identifying symbol that can be conjured by the human imagination can be used as a trademark, with some key limitations we will take up in due course. Most trademarks consist of one or more words. Those words may be written in a particular format using special fonts or in a particular color scheme, but usually, a merchant is entitled to claim exclusive protection for the chosen words regardless of the format in which they are written. A trademark can also be a picture, symbol, or logo. Many of the strongest U.S. trademarks are pictorial in nature, and one can imagine a bizarre cocktail party populated by the many anthropomorphic trademarks that have become universally familiar to consumers around the world—the PILLSBURY DOUGHBOY, MR. PEANUT, RONALD McDONALD, TONY THE TIGER, ELSIE THE COW, and Geico’s GECKO—to name just a few. A firm can also claim trademark protection for the overall shape and design of the packaging in which their product is sold, and in some cases for...
- Any person who uses a trademark belonging to another in a way that is likely to confuse the consuming public about the source or sponsorship of its own goods or services will be liable for trademark infringement. In addition, if a trademark is in that small subset of marks that are considered “famous,” the owner of the mark may be able to prevent even non-confusing uses by third parties. Like other forms of intellectual property, trademarks can be licensed, or sold outright to other parties, but certain technical requirements associated with such transactions can be traps for the unwary.
- Many thoughtful experts bristle at the characterization of trademark rights as “monopolies,” and the monopoly-based criticism of trademark law abated significantly during most of the latter half of the twentieth century. Recent expansions of trademark protection, however, have once again raised the anxiety of some observers who fear significant anti-competitive consequences from an over-broad conception of trademark law.
- Trademark law, by contrast, is motivated by somewhat different considerations. The law protects trademarks to vindicate consumer expectations and keep the market free from fraud and deception. Moreover, by creating a system where consumers know that a product bearing a given trademark always comes from the same source, merchants are encouraged to keep product quality and product attributes consistent. This is why every KLONDIKE BAR ice cream novelty will taste pretty much the same and every room at a COURTYARD BY MARRIOTT will look the same. The resulting consistency in products and services fostered by trademark law tends to reduce “search costs,” and thus promote efficiency and reduce waste—a justification for trademarks we explored a bit earlier in this chapter.
- By convention, trademarks are often written in all upper-case letters in legal materials dealing with trademark issues. This helps them stand out from surrounding text and eliminates ambiguity about the exact words included in any given trademark. We follow that tradition in this book.
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Chapter 3 The Distinctiveness Requirement and Issues of Trademark Validity 93 results (showing 5 best matches)
- In thinking about trademark validity, it is useful to bear in mind that the issue can come up in at least two contexts. First, when a firm seeks federal protection by applying for a Lanham Act registration, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will make an administrative determination of validity. If the mark is found unsuitable, registration will be refused. Second, if one firm accuses another of trademark infringement, the defendant will often argue that the plaintiff’s mark is invalid. This argument can be raised whether the mark is federally registered, or whether it is allegedly protected under state common law. In either case, if the defendant can persuade a court that the term in question is not a valid mark, the plaintiff will be denied relief. Thus, the rules governing trademark validity pervade a large number of trademark disputes.
- Inherently distinctive marks—whether arbitrary, fanciful, or suggestive—used to be known as “technical trademarks.” In the first half of the twentieth century, only technical trademarks could be protected via the common law cause of action for trademark infringement. Owners of all other types of trademarks had to resort to the more general, and more difficult to prove, claim for “unfair competition” in order to protect their marks. Moreover, only technical trademarks were eligible for protection under the Federal Trademark Law of 1905—the predecessor of the Lanham Act. This terminology is now no longer used, and the Reporter’s Notes to the Restatement (Third) of Unfair Competition refers to it as “obsolete.”
- Many prospective trademarks are nothing more than ordinary words or phrases drawn from regular language. Those words or phrases may—to a greater or lesser degree—describe the goods being sold. The more descriptive the words are, however, the more likely it is that other merchants will also need them, suggesting that no one firm should be allowed to monopolize them as a trademark. For instance, if the first firm in an area to sell baked loaves of yeast, flour and water was permitted to sell them under the trademark BREAD, subsequent bakers might have a rather awkward time telling the public what they had available for sale. Protecting a mark consisting of the words FRESHLY BAKED for loaves of bread might also lead to the same difficulties, since many bakers would like to boast that their bread is also freshly baked. At the same time, consumers are less likely to view marks like this as designations of a unique source and more likely to view them as conveying information about product...
- While most issues of trademark validity revolve around the distinctiveness problems considered in this and the previous sections, there are several other types of problems that may prevent a given symbol from being accorded trademark status. Even if a mark is highly distinctive, it may already have been appropriated by another merchant, it may tend to confuse the public, or it may contravene some external policy outside of trademark law. We consider those issues in the few sections that follow.
- J. Thomas McCarthy, Trademarks and Unfair Competition
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Chapter 6 Trademark Dilution 82 results (showing 5 best matches)
- In 1927 an influential law review article, written by an academically accomplished, prominent New York lawyer named Frank Schechter, suggested that the main purpose of trademark law ought not to be the prevention of consumer confusion, but rather the preservation of the uniqueness of merchants’ trademarks. He expressed the concern that even non-confusing uses of a firm’s trademark might cause “the gradual whittling away or dispersion of the identity and hold upon the public mind of the mark.” Effectively Schechter was arguing that strong trademarks were entitled to a property-like protection that should prevent any other party from using the mark, even if the junior user used the mark on non-competing and utterly unrelated goods. protect trademarks known as “dilution.” As the name suggests, the doctrine is designed to provide relief when the acts of an unauthorized third party water down, erode, or weaken the cachet and magnetism of a strong trademark.
- As early as 1932, Congress considered legislation that would have enacted the dilution doctrine as federal trademark law. Frank Schechter helped draft that legislation, and testified in its behalf, but the Congress did not adopt the proposed bill. The dilution concept, however, did not fade away. Rather, proponents turned their attention to the state legislatures. In 1947, Massachusetts became the first state to enact a state trademark dilution statute. The dilution concept received further impetus in 1964 when the then United States Trademark Association (now the International Trademark Association or INTA) promulgated a model state trademark bill which included a dilution provision. By the early 1990s, dilution statutes had been adopted by about half of all U.S. jurisdictions, including such populous and commercially important states as New York, California, Illinois, Florida, and Texas. Nonetheless many courts gave these state dilution laws a narrow construction, for instance...
- When Congress undertook a major revision of the Lanham Act in 1988, the Trademark Review Commission recommended that the time was ripe to adopt a federal dilution law. Although the Senate agreed, the dilution component of the bill failed to secure passage in the House of Representatives and consequently, when the President signed the Trademark Law Revision Act of 1988, it did not include any dilution provisions. Nonetheless, the International Trademark Association continued to push for a federal dilution law, and in 1995, Congress finally passed the Federal Trademark Dilution Act (or FTDA), codified as new section 43(c) of the Lanham Act.
- As a general matter, a trademark is sufficiently distinctive to be diluted by a nonconfusing use if the mark retains its source significance when encountered outside the context of the goods or services with which it is used by the trademark owner. For example, the trademark KODAK evokes an association with the cameras sold under that mark whether the word is displayed with the cameras or used in the abstract. On the other hand, the designation ALPHA could become sufficiently distinctive to be protected as a trademark for cameras, but a use of the term by itself might still evoke a variety of different associations, including nothing more than the first letter of the Greek alphabet. A mark that evokes an association with a specific source only when used in connection with the particular goods or services that it identifies is not ordinarily sufficiently distinctive to be protected against dilution.
- If the anti-dilution statute were construed as permitting a trademark owner to enjoin the use of his mark in a noncommercial context found to be negative or offensive, then a corporation could shield itself from criticism by forbidding the use of its name in commentaries critical of its conduct. The legitimate aim of the anti-dilution statute is to prohibit the unauthorized use of another’s trademark in order to market incompatible products or services. The Constitution does not, however, permit the range of the anti-dilution statute to encompass the unauthorized use of a trademark in a noncommercial setting such as an editorial or artistic context.
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Chapter 10 International Aspects of Trademark Protection 71 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Under Article 16 of the TRIPS Agreement, the special protection for well-known marks applies to both trademarks and service marks, whereas the Paris Convention provision is limited to goods only. The TRIPS Agreement also makes it clear that a well-known mark is entitled to protection even if it is used on different types of goods or services than those sold by the mark owner, “provided that use of that trademark in relation to those goods or services would indicate a connection between those goods or services and the owner of the registered trademark and provided that the interests of the owner of the registered trademark are likely to be damaged by such use.” This standard is essentially the “likelihood of confusion” test for related goods that is commonly used in U.S. domestic trademark disputes.
- The key issue for a trademark owner who seeks to invoke the special protection afforded by these treaties is establishing that its mark is “well-known.” In this regard, the TRIPS Agreement provides that “in determining whether a trademark is well-known, Members shall take account of the knowledge of the trademark in the relevant sector of the public, including knowledge in the Member concerned which has been obtained as a result of the promotion of the trademark.”
- Both the Paris Convention and the TRIPS Agreement require member nations to adhere to a principle known as “national treatment.” This requires each member country to treat foreign parties who apply for trademark protection no less favorably than they treat domestic parties. The national treatment concept can be thought of as a principle of nondiscrimination against foreigners. Consequently, any foreign party seeking U.S. trademark protection is entitled to base its claim on the same activities or representations that would suffice for a domestic firm. For instance, a foreign merchant can begin using the mark in U.S. domestic commerce, and by that act, secure common law rights to the trademark under the laws of the relevant U.S. state or states. Similarly, that foreign merchant can also, based on its use of the mark in domestic U.S. commerce, file for Lanham Act registration. Moreover, a foreign merchant is entitled to seek Lanham Act registration based on an “intent to use” filing,...
- The chief obstacles for U.S. firms seeking trademark protection in other countries are procedural rather than substantive. Under present law, a U.S. firm seeking to protect its trademarks in other nations must file a separate application in every country where it wishes to obtain trademark rights. There is no “one-stop-shopping.” This is, as you might predict, expensive and burdensome. For firms contemplating use of a mark on a global basis, local counsel must be hired in dozens of nations, filings must be made in numerous languages, and administrative and legal fees can be quite substantial. For firms with extensive product lines and multiple trademarks, this cost and the risk of error is enormous.
- With respect to trademarks, § 337 investigations typically commence with the filing of a complaint alleging trademark infringement committed by one or more respondents. The complainant must demonstrate that an industry exists in the United States relating to the article associated with the trademark.
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Chapter 2 Acquiring Trademark Rights 100 results (showing 5 best matches)
- The justification for these rules flows from the underlying logic of trademark law. Trademarks enable consumers easily and quickly to identify goods and services that have satisfied them in the past. In the jargon of economics this means that trademarks reduce “search costs.” Trademarks can only do this, however, if consumers can reliably and consistently associate a given mark with a particular bundle of product attributes. Thus, the law grants the first firm that begins building that association the exclusive right to use that symbol or word so that other firms cannot subsequently thwart consumer expectations by muddying the waters and putting a second competing product on the market under the same name.
- Alas, this situation presents a practical dilemma. A firm might invest heavily in the development of a new trademark only to see that investment go up in smoke should another firm make it to the marketplace first. Moreover, there is really no way to know what trademarks might be “in development” by competitors, since the process of devising and testing a trademark is usually done confidentially. Prior to legislation adopted in 1988, this was just a risk of doing business imposed by the legal focus on actual use as the determining factor in assigning trademark rights. For the past many decades, however, this dilemma has been lessened significantly by a provision in the federal trademark statute that permits a party to begin the registration process and “lock-in” a priority date in advance of use by making an “intent-to-use” filing. We will consider that along with other details of federal registration in short order.
- Federal protection for trademarks is based on a “registration” system. This system is established by the federal trademark statute known as the Lanham Act. Federal trademark registration is entirely optional. Once a firm has commenced use of a mark via bona fide sales to the public (or through other qualifying activities), it will be protected under the common law of its state regardless of whether it has obtained a federal registration. Federal registration, however, confers numerous advantages.
- All four types of symbols can be referred to as “marks,” and in most judicial and administrative opinions, any reference to trademarks is meant to encompass the other three varieties of marks as well. That is true for the discussion that follows in this text as well. The Restatement of Unfair Competition (Third) tracks the Lanham Act by separately defining trademarks, service marks, certification marks, and collective marks but earlier state law opinions rarely used any terminology other than “trademark” regardless of the type of identifying symbol at issue.
- The first step in securing registration is filling out an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, or USPTO. The federal trademark application form is a relatively short and simple form, as government forms go, and the overwhelming majority of applications opt to file that application online.
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Chapter 4 Protection for Trade Dress and Other Unconventional Trademarks 52 results (showing 5 best matches)
- The Court found that there was no legal obstacle to the use of color alone as a trademark, provided that the color had achieved secondary meaning and was not functional. The Court could not “find in the basic objectives of trademark law any obvious theoretical objection to the use of color alone as a trademark . . .” and observed
- Because the Lanham Act defines a trademark as “any word, name, symbol or ” that can identify and distinguish goods, ingenious merchants have occasionally sought protection for exotic types of trademark formats. Provided that these items do in fact serve as source designators, that they are distinctive, and that they are non-functional, there is no obstacle to protection.
- So where do we stand in the wake of forty years of trademark law scattered with references to aesthetic functionality? After , the test for functionality proceeds in two steps. In the first step, courts inquire whether the alleged “significant non-trademark function” satisfies the definition of functionality—“essential to the use or purpose of the article [or] affects [its] cost or quality.” If this is the case, the inquiry is over—the feature is functional and not protected. In the case of a claim of aesthetic functionality, an alternative test inquires whether protection of the feature as a trademark would impose a significant non-reputation-related competitive disadvantage.
- Color is a central attribute of many trademarks. One need only think of the red and white of the COCA-COLA logo, or the brown and gold combination associated with UPS delivery trucks, to appreciate this fact. Nonetheless, courts were initially skeptical about whether a single overall color could, by itself and independent of any design or color scheme, function as a trademark. Those with an affinity for Latin refer to this issue as one involving the protectability of color “simpliciter.”
- Take sound. The three-chime melody associated with the NBC television network has been in use for decades. It is widely, if not universally recognized as a designator for NBC and its programming. It serves no particular utilitarian or aesthetic function, and competitors have a host of other sounds to choose from. Thus it is well-suited for trademark protection. On the other hand, one might imagine that if a railroad company wanted to claim the sound of a locomotive whistle as a trademark, it would be imprudent to grant the request. Other railroads might find it awkward to warn pedestrians and motorists crossing the tracks if trademark law made it impossible for them to use a whistle.
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Summary of Contents 8 results (showing 5 best matches)
Dedication 1 result
Table of Contents 25 results (showing 5 best matches)
Index 37 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Publication Date: December 7th, 2020
- ISBN: 9780314147523
- Subject: Intellectual Property
- Series: Concise Hornbook Series
- Type: Hornbook Treatises
- Description: This new volume hits the sweet spot of thorough and thoughtful coverage of trademark law without bogging readers down in minutiae and a blizzard of footnotes. Professors Schechter and Thomas, authors of multiple texts on IP law, have enlivened this volume with crisp prose, clever examples, and touches of humor. Materials on licensing and assignments, online trademark issues, and international topics augment the traditional discussion of trademark acquisition, validity, infringement, and dilution. The book would work well for end-of-semester review or as a supplementary text with, or substitute for, the usual casebook and will serve as a useful reference work for practitioners long after the course is over.
