Laponite.sup.® is a registered trademark of BYK Additives & Instruments. Throughout the article, the registered trademark symbol should have been used whenever Laponite.sup.® was mentioned.
This book challenges the philosophical foundations of current trademark systems in the USA and the UK. It argues that the process of trademark creation should be transformed to the more practical and ...realistic proposition of co-authorship of trademarks by both the public and trademark owners. The book develops the Economic-Social Planning justification, which departs from the economic argument that trademarks reduce consumer search costs, and then proposes that trademarks should be formul.
Trademarks differ in breadth and can cover a wide range of categories of goods and services. We draw on real options theory and argue that greater trademark breadth constitutes a valuable real option ...that is associated with higher firm valuation and performance. We analyze a sample of 1510 firms that went public in Europe between 2002 and 2015 and find a positive effect of trademark breadth on initial public offering (IPO) valuation and post-IPO performance. We implement a contingency analysis to contrast real options and signaling theory and find stronger support for the real options perspective.
•We draw on real options theory to explore the impact of trademark breadth on IPO outcomes•Empirical study of 1,510 European IPOs between 2002 and 2015•Trademark breadth is associated with higher IPO valuation and post-IPO performance•We implement a contingency analysis to contrast real options and signaling theory•We perform a wide range of robustness checks and employ instrumental variables
This paper analyzes the effects of patents and trademarks in the financing of start-ups through venture capitalists (VCs). Patents and trademarks signal a start-up's technological and marketing ...capabilities. We find that patents and trademarks not only have direct effects on venture capital financing but also have complementary effects. Start-ups that apply for both patents and trademarks yield higher VC funding than do those firms that apply for only one of the two IP rights. Furthermore, we find that the complementarity between patents and trademarks exists only in initial VC funding rounds. Our results suggest that early-phase start-ups seeking their initial VC funding do best when stressing both their technology and marketing capabilities. Accordingly, entrepreneurship policy should encourage start-ups to build both technological and marketing capabilities.
•Among the first studies to examine patents and trademarks from an integrated view.•There exists a complementarity between patents and trademarks in VC financing.•Complementary effect of the two IP rights brings higher VC valuation to a start-up.•This complementary effect exists only for initial VC funding rounds.•This complementary effect diminishes in later VC funding rounds.
Copycats imitate features of leading brands to free ride on their equity. The prevailing belief is that the more similar copycats are to the leader brand, the more positive their evaluation is, and ...thus the more they free ride. Three studies demonstrate when the reverse holds true: Moderate-similarity copycats are actually evaluated more positively than high-similarity copycats when evaluation takes place comparatively, such as when the leader brand is present rather than absent. The results demonstrate that blatant copycats can be less and subtle copycats can be more perilous than is commonly believed. This finding has implications for marketing theory and practice and trademark law.
Trademark Law Pluralism Hemel, Daniel J.; Ouellette, Lisa Larrimore
The University of Chicago law review,
09/2021, Volume:
88, Issue:
5
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
In recent years, trademark scholars have come to recognize that the supply of words, sounds, and symbols available to designate new goods and services is an exhaustible resource. In certain sectors, ...the most common English words and syllables and the most common U.S. surnames are almost all claimed as marks. Some firms have responded by resorting to ever-more-unusual brand names so as to avoid trademark disputes. Scholars have proposed solutions ranging from raising registration fees to narrowing the scope of trademark rights.
In this Article, we frame trademark law's governance of "linguistic space" as a balancing act between what we term proximity costs and distance costs. Proximity costs, the conventional focus of trademark doctrine, occur when different firms use marks that are close in linguistic space—think Zantac (for heartburn) versus Xanax (for anxiety). Distance costs arise when firms use marks that are difficult to remember because of their length or their far remove from the core of semantic signifiers familiar to most consumers—staying in the medicine cabinet, think Valsartan (for high blood pressure) or Namzaric (for memory loss). Although conceptually different, proximity costs and distance costs both create similar practical problems. Both make it more difficult for consumers to purchase and communicate about brands, and both make it harder for new entrants to establish and defend their market share.
Our proximity-distance framing has conceptual payoffs for trademark law. We explain why responses to the crowding of linguistic space internal to trademark law cannot escape some tradeoff between proximity costs and distance costs. Allowing mark holders to control a larger swath of linguistic space reduces proximity costs, but at the expense of pushing other firms to the periphery of linguistic space, increasing distance costs. Similarly, weakening trademark protection to allow more firms to locate their marks in the linguistic core reduces distance costs, but with some increase in proximity costs. Our framing thus shows how the policy problems of trademark law parallel the challenges of managing scarcity in real property. As we draw inspiration from solutions to urban congestion and sprawl, we suggest how non-trademark interventions can lead to more efficient use of linguistic space, promoting product identification without raising proximity or distance costs. Our approach thus points to the possibility of using a plurality of legal and policy tools to address the proximity-distance dilemma at trademark law's heart. And by relieving some of the pressure on trademark law to resolve the proximity-distance dilemma on its own, our approach frees trademark law to pursue a wider range of goals and to vindicate a broader variety of values.
The subject of the crime of imitating the registered trademark is considered one of the most important and vital issues because it relates to the consumer and countries' economy. Its development on ...the one hand, and the increasing role of the trademark in distinguishing goods and services for other goods and services similar to them and preventing theft on the other, as international interest in intellectual property and its elements, especially trademarks, has increased. It should be noted that the trademarks are subject to many assaults especially the imitating, which is not limited to local brands but also includes foreign marks.
Brands, and the trademarks that define them, now indicate much more than simply the source of a good. They represent a line of communication between producer and consumer, allowing the consumer to ...notify the producer of what they value, support, and desire. To do so successfully, however, trademarks require some level of protection. Setting this level is tricky due to the countervailing concern of quelling the public's freedom of expression. This Note examines the level of protection set by the Ninth Circuit in VIP Products v. Jack Daniel's and concludes that it was incorrectly set. It goes on to discuss the underlying policy goals that are involved when drawing this line and proposes a framework that appropriately balances the protection of both the trademark holder and the public.
The author of this article divided the development of central public-interest enterprises into four stages according to the different emphases stressed in every period, thoroughly analyzed the ...actuality, achievement and problems and advanced opinions on the concept and reform aim of Chinese trademark system. It is dedicated to clarify some basic concepts relating to brand strategy, on the basis of which, analyze ways to build trademarks and the important role brand strategy plays in achieving sustainable development of enterprises.
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