{"id":10295,"date":"2010-05-31T14:47:50","date_gmt":"2010-05-31T19:47:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=10295"},"modified":"2010-05-31T14:47:50","modified_gmt":"2010-05-31T19:47:50","slug":"anyone-interested-in-a-faculty-blog-t-shirt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2010\/05\/anyone-interested-in-a-faculty-blog-t-shirt\/","title":{"rendered":"Anyone Interested in a Faculty Blog T-Shirt?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Look around your home and you are sure to find no shortage of cheap promotional items carrying the logo of one business or another.\u00a0 In fact, I\u00a0happen to have in front of me right now\u00a0three pens emblazoned with the names of three different national hotel chains.\u00a0 None of the hotel chains are especially trendy,\u00a0so it is hard to imagine that anyone would actually pay a premium to use the pens because of the presence of the trademarks.\u00a0 But some trademarks do have real cache — think Harley, Starbucks, or BMW — and there might be real money-making opportunities in selling pens, shirts, mugs, and so forth linked to those famous names.\u00a0 So, you might wonder, would it be legal to start producing\u00a0 and selling merchandise bearing famous names without first obtaining a license from the trademark owners?<\/p>\n

As Irene Calboli<\/a>\u00a0explains in a new paper on SSRN<\/a>, the answer has not been as clearly and satisfactorily worked out by the courts as you might think.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is\u00a0commonly thought that trademark rights are recognized\u00a0in order to prevent consumer confusion.\u00a0 But the consumer confusion concerns seem much less compelling when an unlicensed producer is selling a T-shirt with the Starbucks name than a bag of coffee — consumers likely do not have the same quality expectations\u00a0from a Starbucks T-shirt \u00a0that they have from a Starbucks cup of joe.\u00a0 Still, as Irene describes, the trend is towards greater protection of trademark owners’ merchandising rights.<\/p>\n

Irene’s paper thoroughly reviews the development of the law in this area, as well as the arguments for and against the protection of trademark merchandising.\u00a0 She argues in favor of a clearer legal standard that would provide more explicit protection for merchandising, but that would also recognize standard defenses to enforcement actions by trademark owners.<\/p>\n

Entitled “The Case for a ‘Limited’ Protection of Trademark Merchandising,” Irene’s paper is forthcoming in the Illinois Law Review.\u00a0 <\/em>Here is the abstract:<\/p>\n

This Article provides an in-depth analysis of trademark merchandising \u2013 the use of trademarks on promotional products \u2013 and of the inconsistencies that have affected this practice since its \u201cjudicial creation\u201d in the 1970s. Because of the departure from the traditional account of trademark protection \u2013 protecting consumers and the market \u2013 in favor of a direct protection of \u201ctrademark value,\u201d trademark scholars have generally argued against accepting this practice stressing its dangers for consumers and the market. Still, recent judicial decisions and developments in trademark legislation have increasingly indicated a de facto acceptance of trademark merchandising. Hence, neither the courts nor the legislature have formally \u201clegalized\u201d this practice, but have simply stretched the interpretation of the traditional infringement standard to justify protecting trademark merchandising, thus leaving room for doctrinal opposition. As a result, the terms of protection of this practice remain unclear, and trademark owners and competitors are left wondering about the legitimacy of their actions while using trademarks in the course of trade. This Article argues against this uncertainty and advocates for a solution that would reconcile trademark theory and practice while favoring a limited protection of trademark merchandising under the general principles of trademark law. Specifically, this Article suggests recognizing trademark merchandising within the limits of trademark licensing, subject to the requirement of \u201cuse in commerce,\u201d and the existing rules for trademark enforcement, defenses, and fair use. Contrary to common criticism, this limited protection of merchandising would not negatively affect the market or consumers. Instead, this protection would guarantee fairness in competition, prevent frivolous legal actions, and finally provide a clear guideline in this important area of the law.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Look around your home and you are sure to find no shortage of cheap promotional items carrying the logo of one business or another.\u00a0 In fact, I\u00a0happen to have in front of me right now\u00a0three pens emblazoned with the names of three different national hotel chains.\u00a0 None of the hotel chains are especially trendy,\u00a0so it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-intellectual-property-law","category-legal-scholarship","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10295\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}