LAW 5694: Trademark Law - 2221

Trademark law deals with legal bases for obtaining and enforcing interests in commercial symbols, including logos, slogans, and the like, which play central roles both in modern commercial transactions (selling and buying stuff) and in daily conversation.  Trademarks are partly information and partly the stuff of speech. The Trademark Law course will teach you about the many roles that trademark law plays in positioning trademarks as part of business strategies, commercial markets and other institutions, and everyday life. For producers of goods and services, how does trademark law help them make money? For competitors, for purchasers of goods and services, and for firms and citizens generally, how does trademark law preserve the power to access and use trademarks as information about commercial things, information that shapes about the commercial sphere, and information that guides daily experience (if that’s separate from the commercial sphere). The course will teach those things in the context of teaching the skills of trademark lawyering. How do practicing lawyers work with clients? How do practicing lawyers develop and exercise professional judgment? How do practicing lawyers solve trademark problems? The course will put students in the role of practicing lawyers and teach them to think, write, and act as lawyers generally and especially as trademark lawyers.