With IP scholar Mark McKenna, we discuss a body of law we at least all agree should exist: trademark. Why is it essential? What are design patents? (Christian didn’t really know. But he opposes them nonetheless.) How do and should they differ from trademarks? Should there be a much shorter but partly functional protection for innovators’ identities as innovators? We discuss the example of Apple, Samsung, Android, and dilution.

This show’s links:


Mark McKenna’s faculty profile and writing
About the escutcheon
About Joe Miller, the Alaskan politician
The A.V. Club’s Podmass, featuring a write-up about our show by Dan Jakes!
Mark McKenna, Trademark Year in Review
Qualitex Co. v. Jacobson Prods. Co.
Wal-Mart Stores v. Samara Brothers
Traffix Devices v. Marketing Displays
Mark McKenna, Confusion Isn’t Everything
Apple v. Samsung (order denying attorneys’ fees but reviewing the substance of the trade dress claims)
Sears, Roebuck and Co. v. Stiffel Company
Compco Corp. v. Day-Brite Lighting, Inc.
In re Webb (reversing a ruling that a prosthesis, unobservable once implanted, could not be the subject of a design patent)
Christopher Jobson, Welcome to Dismaland: A First Look at Banksy’s New Art Exhibition Housed Inside a Dystopian Theme Park
Mark McKenna and Katherine Strandburg, Progress and Competition in Design
Steve Jobs’ slide containing smartphones as they existed at the moment (source article)
Special Guest: Mark McKenna.