We are delighted to announce the second online event in the CREATe Trade Mark Seminar Series, Summer 2023, focusing on Trade Mark History.
SEMINAR 2: TRADE MARK HISTORY
Time and place: Wednesday 24 May 2023, 5.30pm-6.30pm, UK time, online.
Speakers: Dr Elena Cooper, CREATe and Prof. David Higgins, University of Newcastle.
Commentator: Prof. Alison Firth, University of Surrey.
Chair: Dr Xiaoren Wang, Lecturer in Law, University of Dundee and CREATe Fellow.
Title: Crime, Trade Marks, and ‘Soft’ Trade Policy in the Inter-war Era: Market Realities and the Merchandise Marks Act 1926
Abstract: In this paper we explore a specific facet of the relationship between trade marks and the criminal law in the UK in the twentieth century. Fusing insights from legal, business and economic history, we show how, in the inter-war years of the twentieth century, the context of domestic politics and wider international trade policy, resulted in a greater focus on the relationship between trade marks and market-place understandings of the national manufacturing origin of products. This context resulted, amongst other things, in the passage of the Merchandise Marks Act 1926: a criminal law measure that stipulated the circumstances in which imported goods were to be marked with an indication of origin of the place of manufacture/production (either a definite indication of the country of origin, or ‘Empire’ or ‘Foreign’) and included, in section 1, a criminal offence regulating the use of inter alia a trade mark ‘being or purporting to be’ the trade mark of a UK trader. We show that, during the interwar period, the criminal law regulating trade marks became entwined with ‘soft’ trade policy, i.e. a means of protecting the domestic/Empire market falling short of ‘hard’ trade policy (protection/tariffs). The proper role of the criminal law regulating trade marks in international trade policy polarised political debate in the legislature, and also involved major commercial and manufacturing organisations, such as the Federation of British Industry, and various chambers of commerce. Using new archival sources, we show how the meaning of the 1926 Act was actualised through the enforcement of the 1926 Act by the Board of Trade. We explore the problems that confronted the Board of Trade when it enforced the 1926 Act, particularly stemming from the substantial presence of foreign multinationals located in the UK. The 1926 Act did not apply to imported goods that had undergone a ‘substantial change’ through a treatment/process in the UK, and the difficulties in applying this test in practice ultimately led to the demise of Board of Trade prosecutions under the 1926 Act, and a renewed focus by the Board on its powers to prosecute ‘false trade descriptions’ contained in earlier legislation: section 2(1) Merchandise Marks Act 1887.
Biographies: Elena Cooper is Senior Research Fellow at CREATe, University of Glasgow. Her work to date includes Art and Modern Copyright: The Contested Image (CUP, 2018) which was shortlisted by the Society of Legal Scholars for the Birks book prize for outstanding legal scholarship in 2020. Elena’s research is currently funded by an Early Career Fellowship from The Leverhulme Trust and mentored by Prof. Lindsay Farmer, University of Glasgow. Elena joined CREATe in 2014 from the University of Cambridge where she was Orton Fellow in Intellectual Property Law at Trinity Hall and also completed her PhD on copyright history supervised by Prof. Lionel Bently.
David Higgins is a professor in the accounting and finance division of Newcastle University Business School. He has published widely on the business and economic history of merchandise marks and trade marks. His recent publications in this field include, Brands, Geographical Origin, and the Global Economy, (CUP, 2018), and National Brands and Global Markets (edited with Nikolas Glover, Routledge, 2023).
Alison Firth originally studied physics, but curiosity about patents led her into the law. Her interests cover the laws of intellectual property and their interaction with other areas of law, such as contract and competition law. She is Chairman of the British Literary and Artistic Copyright Association, ‘BLACA’ (the UK member organisation of ALAI, the Association Litteraire et Artistique Internationale) and a committee member of the European Intellectual Property Teachers’ Network. The 5th edition of her book Trade Marks: Law and Practice with Peter Cornford and Andrew Griffiths was published in December 2020. She is Professor emeritus in law at the University of Surrey and a visiting professor at Newcastle Law School.
As previously announced, the CREATe Trade Mark Seminar Series comprises two on-line talks about trade mark law each term: one on trade mark history (convened by Dr Elena Cooper), and one on innovative methodologies in trade mark research (convened by Dr Xiaoren Wang). The Series was launched in Summer 2022. It is open to scholars (including research students) of any discipline worldwide.
Zoom links for the seminars will be emailed a few days before the events to all on the CREATe Trade Mark Seminar Series mailing list. There is no need to RSVP. To join the mailing list, please contact Elena Cooper: elena.cooper@glasgow.ac.uk