Research Project

Investigators:
Irene Calboli & Jane C. Ginsburg

Abstract:
Trademark law today demands that its experts master principles of international and comparative law. This book aims to assist that endeavor. Its chapters describe and critically analyze the international and regional frameworks, and then provide comparative law perspectives on the principal substantive issues in trademark law and related fields, such as geographic indications, advertising law, domain names and licensing.  This book is the first of its kind to address these topics systematically and comparatively in one comprehensive collection.  In particular, the book contrasts common law and civil law approaches, and focuses on the U.S. and EU trademark systems.  The book accords these systems particular prominence in light of the role they have had, historically, in the development of trademark laws internationally and, in turn, the impact that the principles, rules, and doctrines originating from these two systems have had on the national laws of a large number of jurisdictions worldwide. But the book also takes into account other jurisdictions, both common law and civil law, on the Asia-Pacific, African, and South American continents. In its two parts, the book provides a comprehensive survey of the existing trademark rules and general doctrines that have evolved in the past century at the international level and how these rules (that originated from a variety of national systems subsequently molded into international agreements through international diplomacy) have later been implemented at the national level. These multilateral efforts have produced a largely harmonized trademark system worldwide. Still, the book highlights that, despite this process of harmonization and convergence of national and regional laws, some differences in national trademark laws persist. Moreover, the national application of harmonized principles has led, at times, to different results in adjudication of similar cases across different countries. The book provides a useful resource also in this respect.