INTA Annual Meeting – a century of trademarks

Good meeting. San Francisco is a good location, even if it isn’t providing us good weather. Everything is walkable; the Moscone Center is human sized — though I’ve been shut out of not one but two sessions because the rooms they put them in were too small. These are programs I registered for in January! Not excusable, and something I have never experienced in all my years at INTA meetings.

INTA, Moscone Center, a photo by Ron Coleman on Flickr.

It turned out to be a good thing, because instead of attending just another social media panel, I went to a fantastic program with a true all-star panel called “A Century of Trademark Law” presided over by none other than Prof. J. Thomas McCarthy and including Eric Goldman, who besides being a bit of a blogger answers my late-night questions over Google Talk from time to time.

Very, very un-INTA.   IPKat was there too, and wrote it up but good.  That took a lot of work; instead, I live-tweeted it:

Speaker [Miles Alexander] at “Century of #TM Law” (nope, no name placards): Mark owners go too far, sue too often, have lost sense of humor. #INTASF

• “Century” panelist: “Internet will solve more #trademark problems than it causes” – knowledge, transparency are power.  Excellent.
• “Century” panel: McCarthy introducing @ericgoldman, says He (McC) reads Eric’s blog, “just as everyone here does”
• “Century” panel: @ericgoldman: “Courts can learn social science [e.g. survey evidence]; legislators mostly deal with rent seeking”
• “Century” panel: @ericgoldman: “#trademark owners can’t control the brand ‘channel’ the way they could pre-Internet”
• “Century” panel: @ericgoldman: “Degradation of distinction between commercial and non-commercial speech devastating to #trademark“
• “Century” panel pic http://lockerz.com/s/102481948
• “Century” panel: @ericgoldman: #trademark struggling with new phenomenon of “name spaces”
• “Century” panel: @ericgoldman: “Hoary #trademark concepts haven’t kept up with social science learning re consumer behavior”
• “Century Panel”: Sir Robin Jacob: they told me at #INTA everyone gives everyone else his card. That’s 51 million cards; I don’t have enough
• “Century Panel”: Sir Robin Jacob: they told me at #INTA everyone gives everyone else his card. That’s 51 million cards; I don’t have enough
• “Century Panel”: Sir Robin Jacob: Brand owners sue regardless of merit; big defeats small. #INTASF
• “Century Panel”: Sir Robin: Brand owners seek to “enclose” not just #trademark but concepts & tech | See my http://bit.ly/jyGepT
• “Century Panel”: Sir Robin: #trademark has gone too far; I hope we’re pulling back from here, not going further.
• “Century Panel”: @ericgoldman responds to my question – shouldn’t Congress take control of emerging issues in #trademark? (Yes but)
• “Century Panel”: @ericgoldman responds: Common law a key component of #trademark law but yes Congress should act; it likely can’t.
• “Century Panel”: Miles Alexander backs up @ericgoldman; dilution changed everything by taking confusion out of #trademark
• “Century Panel”: @ericgoldman responds to question – Is #trademark a property right? Not really. No fences around marks. #INTASF

Excellent stuff.  Worth the trip alone just to see the smoke rising from some INTA heads in the hall.

Originally posted 2012-08-24 11:24:13. Republished by Blog Post Promoter