CIPIL Seminar: 'Non-Traditional Marks In Europe: Conceptual Lessons From Their Potential Demise'

Speaker

Graeme B. Dinwoodie, Global Professor of Intellectual Property Law, IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law.

Abstract

The adoption of the European Trade Mark Directive in 1989 represented an endorsement of a broad conception of trade mark subject matter. This approach was very much in line with developments elsewhere around that time. For several European countries, including the United Kingdom, this involved a substantial revision of historical resistance to trade mark registration of the shape of goods as trade marks. In the last three years, however, case law from the Court of Justice and the UK courts has called into question the viability of non-traditional marks, and shape marks in particular, in Europe. The UK case law reflects some of the skepticism that the UK courts and UK law had shown towards shape marks under pre-Directive law. This talk will consider that case law, not only in terms of the future protection of such marks in the European Union, but also for what is says about the conceptual and analytical structure of trade mark law.

About the speaker

Graeme B. Dinwoodie is Global Professor of Intellectual Property Law at Chicago-Kent College of Law, and co-Director of the Centre for Design, Law and Technology. He returned full-time to Chicago in 2018 after nine years as the Professor of Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law at the University of Oxford, where he was also Director of the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre, and a Professorial Fellow of St. Peter’s College. Immediately prior to taking up the IP Chair at Oxford, Professor Dinwoodie was for several years a Professor of Law at Chicago-Kent College of Law and, from 2005-2009, also held a Chair in Intellectual Property Law at Queen Mary College, University of London. Professor Dinwoodie has held a number of visiting or honorary positions, including as the Yong Shook Lin Visiting Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the National University of Singapore, a Global Professor of Law at New York University School of Law, an Honorary Professor of Law at the University of Strasbourg, the George P. Smith II Distinguished Visiting Chair at Indiana University Maurer School of Law, and a visiting professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law. Professor Dinwoodie holds an LLB (Hons) degree from the University of Glasgow, an LL.M. degree from Harvard Law School (where he was a John F. Kennedy Scholar), and a J.S.D. degree from Columbia Law School (where he was a Burton Fellow). He was elected as a member of the American Law Institute in 2003, and served as President of ATRIP from 2011-2013. In 2008, the International Trademark Association awarded Professor Dinwoodie the Pattishall Medal for Teaching Excellence in Trademark Law. In addition to his book A Neofederalist Vision of TRIPS: The Resilience of the International Intellectual Property Regime (Oxford Univ. Press 2012), co-authored with Rochelle Dreyfuss, he is the author of five casebooks including Trademarks and Unfair Competition: Law and Policy (4th ed 2014) (with Janis), and International Intellectual Property Law and Policy (2d ed. 2008) (with Hennessey, Perlmutter and Austin). His scholarship has appeared in several leading law journals and is widely cited by scholars in Europe, the United States and elsewhere. He received the 2008 Ladas Memorial Award from the International Trademark Association for his article Confusion Over Use: Contextualism in Trademark Law (with Janis). Professor Dinwoodie has served as a consultant to the World Intellectual Property Organization on matters of private international law, as an Adviser to the American Law Institute Project on Principles on Jurisdiction and Recognition of Judgments in Intellectual Property Matters, and as a consultant to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development on the Protection of Traditional Knowledge. He currently serves as an Adviser on the ALI’s project on the Restatement of Copyright Law and is a door tenant at 3 New Square.

For further information please contact CIPIL Administrator, Mr. James Parish jprp2@cam.ac.uk