Sharing Famous Brand Names: An empirical study of trademark dilution
Date: 16 March 2011
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Paul J. Heald, Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Allen Post Professor from the University of Georgia Law presents the second CIPPM lecture on the 24 March 2011. |
Date: Thursday, 24 March 2011
Time: 6:00 pm
Venue: EB306, Bournemouth University, Executive Business Centre, 69-89 Holdenhurst Road, Bournemouth, BH8 8EB
The annual Spring Public Seminar Series organised by the Business School’s Centre for Intellectual Property Policy & Management (CIPPM) continues with Prof. Paul Heald’s exciting research on brand sharing.
Trademark dilution is a highly controversial cause of action in the US and in Europe that has been the subject of hundreds of law review articles, but no significant scientific work. Prof. Paul Heald research analysed 60 years of telephone white pages, corporate & LLC naming data, advertisements from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post, state and federal trademark databases, and all recorded dilution litigation.
The collected data strongly suggests that famous trademarks are frequently borrowed for use as trade names in services, but almost never as trade marks on products. Given that calls for anti-dilution legislation are based on the assumption that uses like “Buick Aspirin” were common, our conclusions are significant. Our data also show that US anti-dilution laws likely have had some effect in the significant decline in brand sharing that we chart. We conclude by examining the still-widespread phenomenon of brand sharing and find that recent psychological studies help explain why the harm allegedly caused by unauthorized sharing (denominated “dilution”) is unlikely ever to occur.
Attendance is free, but seats can be reserved by pre–registration via email at: bsresearch@bournemouth.ac.uk.
