Dr Luke Mcdonagh CKK 7.35

This course is available on the Executive Master of Laws (ELLM). This course is not available as an outside option.

You do not need prior exposure to intellectual property law or a marketing background to take the course. You will be supported throughout the course to understand trademarks as legal signs and as brands within a consumer marketplace

The Brands and Trademark Law Executive LLM module focuses on a growing part of the modern economy: the protection and enforcement of intangible brand value. This course takes a socio-legal approach to branding, exploring legislation and case law concerning registered trademarks in the UK and EU, undertaking comparative analysis of US and International trademark law and drawing insights from marketing and anthropological literature. After an introduction to the historical bases and normative premises of modern trademark law, we explore the core elements of trademark jurisprudence. We also consider the wider notion of the ‘brand’ in the modern economy and examine how the law protects this value.

Topics covered include: an introduction to national, regional and international trademark registration systems; registration requirements, including absolute grounds and relative grounds of refusal; the scope of trademark rights; branding, marketing and the ownership of brand image in the context of the interaction between consumers and corporate brands; trademark infringement; confusion and dilution; and exceptions and defences.

The course would involve 24-26 hours of contact time.

This Would take the form of a week-long course with two x 120min seminars per day, with additional online contact.

Students will be expected to produce 1 essay in the AT.

Students will have the option of producing a formative essay of 2000 words to be delivered one month from the end of the module’s teaching session by email.

• F. Schechter, ‘The rational basis of trademark protection’ (1926) 40 Harvard Law Review 813-833.
• L. Bently, ‘The making of modern trade mark law. The construction of the legal concept of trade mark (1860-1880)’ in Bently, Ginsburg & Davis (eds), Trade Marks and Brands. An Interdisciplinary Critique (CUP, 2008).
• T. Drescher, ‘The evolution of trademarks. From signals to symbol to myth’ (1992) 82 Trade Mark Reporter 301-332. 
• B. Beebe & J. Fromer, ‘Are we running out of trademarks?’ 131 Harvard Law Review (2018) 945.
• L. McDonagh, ‘From Brand Performance to Consumer Performativity: Assessing European Trade Mark Law after the Rise of Anthropological Marketing’ (2015) 42 Journal of Law & Society 611.
• C. Nakassis, ‘Brand, Citationality, Performativity’ (2012) 114 American Anthropologist 624.
• H.J. Schau, A.M. Muñiz & E.J. Arnould, ‘How Brand Community Practices Create Value’ (2009) 73 Journal of Marketing 30. 
• C.J. Ramirez-Montes, ‘Louboutin Heels and the Competition Goals of EU Trade Mark Law’ 19 UIC Rev. Intell. Prop. L. (2019) 38.
• G. Dinwoodie & D.S. Gangjee, ‘The Image of the Consumer in EU Trade Mark Law’ in Leczykiewicz and Weatherill (eds), The Image(s) of the Consumer in EU Law (Hart, 2015); Oxford Legal Studies Research Paper No. 83/2014.

Assessment path 1
Essay (100%, 8000 words).

Assessment path 2
Take-home assessment (100%).