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Burrell, Robert --- "Trademark bureaucracies" [2008] ELECD 163; in Dinwoodie, B. Graeme; Janis, D. Mark (eds), "Trademark Law and Theory" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2008)

Book Title: Trademark Law and Theory

Editor(s): Dinwoodie, B. Graeme; Janis, D. Mark

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845426026

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: Trademark bureaucracies

Author(s): Burrell, Robert

Number of pages: 37

Extract:

3 A search-costs theory of limiting doctrines
in trademark law1
Stacey L. Dogan and Mark A. Lemley



Twenty years have passed since William Landes and Richard Posner wrote
their classic economic defense of trademark laws.2 Under Landes and Posner's
"search costs" theory, trademarks have value because they reduce consumer
search costs and thus promote overall efficiency in the economy. Over the past
two decades, the search costs theory of trademark law has attracted a substan-
tial following among both commentators and courts.3
While the search costs theory provides a compelling argument for trademark
rights, it also compels an equally important ­ but often overlooked ­ set of prin-
ciples for defining and limiting those rights. Certainly, trademark laws can make
it easier and cheaper for consumers to locate products with desired qualities,


1 © 2007 Stacey L. Dogan & Mark A. Lemley. This chapter is a continuation
of a larger project on trademarks, and portions of the text are adapted from our article
Trademarks and Consumer Search Costs on the Internet, 41 HOUS. L. REV. 777 (2004)
[hereinafter Dogan & Lemley, Search Costs]. Thanks to Graeme Dinwoodie, Eric
Goldman, Rose Hagan, Laura Heymann, Justin Hughes, Mark Janis, Ariel Katz, Doug
Lichtman, Peter Menell, Michael Meurer, Sandra Rierson, Peter Swire, Rita Weeks and
participants in workshops at the 2004 IPIL/Houston Santa Fe Conference: Trademark
in Transition, Boston University Law School, the Intellectual Property Scholars'
Conference at DePaul College of Law, George Washington University National Law
Center, Stanford Law School, Thomas Jefferson ...