Trade Marks and Brands: An Interdisciplinary Critique

Developments in trade marks law have called into question a variety of basic features, as well as bolder extensions, of legal protection. Other disciplines can help us think about fundamental issues such as: what is a trade mark? What does it do? What should be the scope of its protection? This volume assembles essays examining trade marks and brands from a multiplicity of fields: from business history, marketing, linguistics, legal history, philosophy, sociology and geography. Each chapter pairs lawyers\u27 and non-lawyers\u27 perspectives, so that each commentator addresses and critiques his or her counterpart\u27s analysis. The perspectives of non-legal fields are intended to enrich legal academics\u27 and practitioners\u27 reflections about trade marks, and to expose lawyers, judges and policy-makers to ideas, concepts and methods that could prove to be of particular importance in the development of positive law. The first interdisciplinary discussion of trade marks and brands Each chapter matches a lawyer with a contributor from another discipline, ensuring that the non-lawyers have a good understanding of legal technicalities, and that the insights from different disciplines for law are assessed by legal commentators Extensive bibliography offers a basis for future researchhttps://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/books/1094/thumbnail.jp