Trademark law is flawed in its approach to trademark uses in entertainment. Infringement turns on whether a consumer is likely to be confused into believing that a markholder sponsored or approved of the use. Because consumers are increasingly aware of product placement and other sponsored mark...

The established principle on which trademark protection rests is that a trademark owner has exclusive right in his trademark and that right prohibits third parties from using or registering identical or similar trademark as is likely to cause confusion in the course of trade. The exclusive use...

Trademark litigation in America today is undergoing a profound change. Based on a review of all trademark cases reported since the Lanham Act took effect, this article concludes that this profound change is due to quot;trademark extortion,quot; the use of strike suits and the like to deter...

Conventional wisdom holds that trademarks are nothing like other intellectual property. Copyright and patent law are theoretically based in public goods theory and designed to promote creation and disclosure of original expressions and novel, useful innovations. By contrast, trademarks are...

In this article, we discuss how trademark law might apply to virtual worlds and virtual economies. In Part I, we consider how trademark infringement in virtual worlds resembles and differs from trademark infringement in other media. In Part II, we look at the various business models of...

After nearly 20 years of effectiveness, the Federal Trademark Dilution Act (FTDA) remains as controversial as ever. What the 20 years of jurisprudence has taught us is that academics have been right all along. Dilution is either unconstitutional, inappropriate, or simply misguided legislation....

We study the effects of trademark protection on firm profits and strategy using the 1996 Federal Trademark Dilution Act, which granted additional legal protection to selected trademarks. We find that the FTDA raised treated firms' operating profits and was followed by a spike in trademark...

In May 2017 the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in the Joseph Phelps Vineyards case reversed the United States Patent and Trademark Office's Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) for improperly applying the “strength” factor as a yes-no decision when analyzing the likelihood of...