IViR is pleased to announce that
Prof. Lisa Ramsey
will give a lecture entitled
Balancing Trademark and Free Speech Rights in Trademark Registration and Enforcement Laws
on 4 April 2025
Trademark laws are government regulations of language, designs, and other types of expression used to communicate about the source of goods or services. Trademarks are also used by their owners and others to provide information about a product’s qualities, express ideas and opinions, and decorate products and their packaging. Unfortunately, some trademark laws today stifle the communication of nonmisleading messages protected by the right to freedom of expression. Among other things, they allow the trademark registration of subject matter that should arguably remain in the public domain for use by others in connection with the advertising and sale of their products.
In this presentation, I argue that the free expression right in the United States, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries imposes limits on what subject matter can qualify as a trademark. The free speech right should not just be invoked to limit the scope of trademark rights or remedies, or to strike down trademark registration laws that discriminate based on viewpoint. When words, personal names, symbols, colors, creative works, or other signs claimed as trademarks have substantial pre-existing informational, expressive, or decorative value that is not attributable to the trademark owner’s reputation, this inherently valuable expression should not be registered as a trademark or the registrant should only have a narrow scope of trademark rights. Governments should also ensure that their trademark enforcement laws contain speech-protective and pro-competitive rules that allow informational and expressive uses of another’s mark that are not likely to mislead about a product’s source, and decorative uses of words, colors, and creative works that had intrinsic attention-grabbing value before they were claimed as a mark by another.
Lisa Ramsey is a Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law, where she teaches and writes in the intellectual property law area. She is an expert on trademark law and has given presentations on this topic to attorneys, professors, and students throughout the United States and around the world.
Professor Ramsey’s scholarship focuses on potential conflicts between trademark laws and free speech rights, and explains how trademark protection of certain inherently valuable words, symbols, and product features can harm fair competition and freedom of expression. She is currently working on a book about this topic which will be published by Cambridge University Press. Information about her publications is available on her website at www.lisapramsey.com.
Practical details:
Date: 4 April 2025
Time: 15:30 – 16:45 CET (Amsterdam)
Place:
– IViR Room, REC A5.24, Nieuwe Achtergracht 166, 1018 WV Amsterdam.
– Online via Zoom (you will receive the Zoomlink via e-mail on the morning of the lecture).
See also the flyer. Please register below to sign up for this lecture.