Trade marks, country names and misappropriation of national identity (original) (raw)
Related papers
TERRITORIALITY CHALLENGES FOR TRADEMARK PROTECTION IN A WORLD WITHOUT BORDERS
IAEME PUBLICATION, 2024
In today's global economy, protecting trademarks within the international legal framework has become increasingly significant. The territoriality doctrine, a principle in public international law, empowers sovereign states to have sole jurisdiction and authority over individuals and legal entities operating within their geographic boundaries. This paper explores the functioning of trademark protection across various countries, with a particular emphasis on two key principles: transborder reputation and its evolving jurisprudence. The concept of transborder reputation is analyzed in detail, underscoring its importance compared to the traditionally territorial nature of trademark regimes under intellectual property rights. The paper also discusses several judicially developed safeguards that form the basis of transborder reputation protection, including criteria for establishing a trademark's reputation beyond its country of origin and the evidentiary requirements to prove such reputation. Challenges faced by multinational corporations in protecting their trademarks internationally are highlighted, focusing on the balance between territorial principles and global brand recognition. The study concludes with recommendations for enhancing international cooperation and strengthening legal frameworks to support the enforcement of trademark rights globally.
Nation Brand and Intellectual Property in the Context of Globalization
2012
In the last 10 years a new dimension of branding was developed: national branding. The concept is as controversial as the concept of globalization; specialist either embraced or criticized it. But more and more countries hire specialist in order to shape a national brand, attractive for other individuals, residents in foreign countries. The concept is meant to create or emphasize national identity in a globalised world. But the national brand is not just a concept, some fliers and maybe a video or two. The national brand is influenced by the country’s economy, and the intellectual property rights made representative for that state. New patented inventions, new successful brands, the promotion of traditional knowledge can help enhance the international image of a nation. The paper explores the structure of the national brand meaning the elements that put together form the image of a nation and how intellectual property (IP) aspects can be found or not in these elements. The goal is t...
The trademark protection of country brands: insights from New Zealand
Journal of Place Management and …, 2008
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present the opportunities for and challenges of the trademark protection of country brands. Design/methodology/approach – Insights into the challenges and possibilities of country brand trademark protection are identified using New Zealand as a case study. This evaluation is divided into four sections. In the first section, the relations and differences between brands and trademarks are discussed in the context of the country trademark. Then, possible sources of country trademarks are identified. Next, the benefits and challenges of creating and managing country trademarks are discussed based on the case of the New Zealand Fern Mark. The final section addresses the determiners of country trademark implementation and offers recommendations for country brand managers. Findings – This study makes the case that a nation's heritage is a rich source of country trademarks. The selection of country trademarks must ensure that the chosen symbol conveys meaning and associations that serve a country's often broad range of offerings and resonate with a diversity of stakeholder audiences. Practical implications – Governance structures need to be established to manage a country trademark to ensure the country brand's integrity. This includes a licensing system and protocols to prevent successive governments from altering the brand's essence which would destroy its equity built up over time. Originality/value – This paper extends the concept of trademarks, once the domain of products and service brands, to the emerging field of place brand management.
Contemporary Intellectual Property, 2019
This chapter introduces the key features of registered trade mark law, highlighting core aspects of registered trade mark protection and its differences to other IP rights. It discusses the theoretical underpinnings for registered trade mark protection and also the accompanying policy tensions, in the context of an increasingly visible place of brands in society. The chapter introduces the legal regime for the protection of trade marks from an international, EU, and national (UK) perspective. Reflecting relevant agreements and treaties, the chapter outlines various standards established for the protection of trade marks, along with the systems by virtue of which traders can register and protect marks in many countries throughout the world.
The role of country names in country branding
Although regarding the name of a country as a brand name is natural for place branding professionals, it may offend laymen. However, country names and brand names do cause the same reaction: when we see or hear a specific country name, we have certain associations in our mind. Then these associations help us decide whether we visit the place as a tourist, invest capital there, or purchase the products of the country. But can a country change its name the way product brands do from time to time? Changing a country name is most definitely a much more complicated issue than using a new product name, as geographical names (including country names) usually have long historical roots. These names are also strongly connected to the life of local inhabitants who have got used to them, therefore they are not easy to change. Still, there are examples that could be analysed from the aspect of branding. In some cases the new brand name or country name is meant to symbolise a new beginning. For example, when colonies claimed their independence, the first thing to do was to create a new name for the country. And something similar happened when the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia broke up – the newly formed successor states started to use new names, or returned to their old names. Some countries still have changing their names on the agenda. Possible reasons include the complicatedness of the country name, or its similarities with other country names, resulting in disadvantages in the competition of countries. A country name is also extremely important because it is the only common element in the communications campaigns of the country – and wise countries make advantage of this, sometimes even integrating the country name in their slogans.
Company Versus Country Branding: “Same, same but Different”
Developments in Marketing Science: Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Science, 2014
The aim of this study is to investigate whether countries can be branded like companies. Company brands are managed according to clear ownership and top-down control of brand management. In contrast, countries are governed according to the public interest, which requires transparency and participation.
Trademarks and Territory: Detaching Trademark Law from the Nation-State
Houston Law Review, 2004
But trademark law is not unique in its territorial character and might have assumed this character absent international conventions. Much law is territorial. This is true for many reasons, reasons that have consumed international lawyers and legal theorists for centuries. Historically, the principal divide was between laws that attached to the person, wherever that person traveled, and laws that regulated according to the place where a relevant legal event occurred. Scholars of private international law have for many years offered a variety of theories advocating one approach over the other and over time have developed rules that allocate some legal questions to the law of the person and others to the law of the place. 8 Trademark law is firmly in the latter category. The attractions of territoriality are clear. Law is contextual, and geography is an important part of context. 9 Territorial regulation of conduct comports in some sense with intuitive notions of appropriate prescriptive authority, embodied in the aphorism "when in Rome, do as the Romans do." And territorial regulation might also be supported for practical or pragmatic reasons such as the relative ease of enforcing domestic judgments and comity-grounded concerns of reciprocal overreaching. Without rehearsing more fully the claims of territoriality as a governing principle of the reach of law, 10 it is clear that courts and scholars justifying the territoriality of trademark law have resorted to some of the same arguments that are advanced in other fields of law. 11 As I will explain in greater detail below, however, there are additional reasons that explain the territorial character of trademark law. Some flow from the intrinsic nature and purpose of trademarks; others reflect the shape of economic policymaking; and yet others reflect the structure of political institutions used to administer and enforce trademark law. For present purposes, it is sufficient to note that it is in some sense hardly radical to find that trademark law is territorial. In trademark law, the principle of territoriality is a vessel 8.
Country Branding and its effect on the consumer in the global market
Cuadernos de Gestión, 2016
Country Branding-a relatively new type of marketing and public diplomacy-is a developing field and a tool that governments use to promote their goods and services and to enhance awareness about their country, promote tourism, increase trade and attract foreign direct investment (FDI) and talent. A Country Brand is more than a sum of its products. The purpose of this literature review is to investigate the key components of international and intercultural transactions and to focus on how these influence the Nation Brand. In the global marketplace, where products and services from different countries are competing for market share, it is important to understand how a product's place of origin contributes its overall image, and how consumers relate to the foreign product. By identifying the consumer it is possible to gain an understanding of the cultural influences that determine the consumers' relation to the product, service, or Nation Brand. Likewise, this paper relates previous studies in the fields of country-of-origin (COO) and consumer studies as influential factors the evolution of Country Branding. By gaining a clear idea of the relationship between these three fields-COO, consumer and Country Branding-, scholars and professionals can assess the influence that a product's country-of-origin has on its audience, and create country brands that effectively define the product and reach target consumers.
Short Considerations on the Use of Trade Indicators as Trademarks
Challenges of the Knowledge Society, 2012
In today's global marketplace products and services are exchanged internationally not only by large companies wielding a large portfolio of internationally protected trademarks but also by small enterprises and even individuals who have neither the resources nor an interest in the building of such a portfolio. Since they are nonetheless economic agents using either their own or others' trade indicators to indicate the origin and quality of the products and services they provide or simply to advertise them, the present paper addresses some of the issues arising out of that use which is akin to trademark use in what regards said products and services. Special attention is paid to the change in purpose of the trade indicators when used as trademarks and the effects said change causes in the legal protection conferred to those trade indicators. Moreover the possible conflicts between such rights are shortly analyzed and the means for resolution of such conflicts briefly reviewed...