8,000 delegates attended INTA's annual meeting to swap business cards, enjoy a comprehensive trademark programme and complain about how hard it is to hail a taxi in San Francisco.
The Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Sir Robin Jacob, who took up the Sir Hugh Laddie Chair in IP Law at University College London on May 2, looked at the present state of trademark law by examining how it has developed in the past across major jurisdictions. He also made predictions about how it might develop in the future.
British trademark law has had longer to establish than European trademark law, Jacob explained, and in that time, traders have attempted to increase the amount of protection that a trademark can afford them. Traders have pushed the limits of trademark protection “backwards” because “they want to enclose."
Contemporary European continental law does not have the “same suspicion of monopolies” as British common law. “It’s happier with fuzzier rules of law such as unfair competition,” he said.
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INTA meeting 2011, San Francisco, trademarks
