LAIPLALAIPLA
LAIPLALAIPLA
  • About
    • About LAIPLA
    • Ambassador Outreach Program
    • Board of Directors
    • Committees
    • Administration
    • Member Firms and Companies
    • Past Presidents
    • Recent Past Presidents
    • Public Service Award
    • Diversity Fellowship
    • Bylaws
  • Events
  • Membership
  • Sponsorship
  • Contact
  • About
    • About LAIPLA
    • Ambassador Outreach Program
    • Board of Directors
    • Committees
    • Administration
    • Member Firms and Companies
    • Past Presidents
    • Recent Past Presidents
    • Public Service Award
    • Diversity Fellowship
    • Bylaws
  • Events
  • Membership
  • Sponsorship
  • Contact

Recommended Reading: Prof. Ouillette, “Does Running Out Of (Some) Trademarks Matter?”

February 13, 2018February 14, 2018| in The TTABlog| by John L. Welch

Lisa Larimore Ouillette, Associate Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, responds to the article posted hereyesterday, in a note entitled, Does Running Out Of (Some) Trademarks Matter?, 131 Harv. Law. Rev. Forum 116 (2018) [pdf here]. While praising the work of Professors Beebe and Fromer, Professor Ouillette suggests further avenues of research regarding the actual costs or the countervailing benefits of either depletion or congestion, before recommending any change in the current trademark system.

In this short space, I wish to laud the remarkable descriptive contribution of Are We Running Out of Trademarks? while sounding a note of caution on the normative implications. Beebe and Fromer’s data convincingly demonstrate that short, common word marks are becoming depleted and congested, and they present a number of plausible hypotheses about the negative welfare impact of this trend. Their findings suggest that trademark policy has been based on false assumptions and should be closely reexamined. But their data cannot elucidate the actual costs of depletion or congestion — particularly without noting how the market will adapt to reduce these costs — and cannot reveal if there are countervailing benefits. Generating concrete evidence of these costs and benefits seems like a necessary next step before recommending any significant changes to the current trademark system. After offering a laudatory evaluation of the value of Beebe and Fromer’s descriptive work, I explore why reforms in reaction to their research should proceed cautiously, and I suggest important avenues for future empirical work to build on these results.

IP Blog Categories

  • Announcements
  • Events
  • LAIPLA News
  • The TTABlog
  • Uncategorized
  • Wegner's Top 10
  • Wegner's Writings

Archives

Previous

TTAB Will Hold Two Final Hearings at Tulane Law School – February 28th

Next

Precedential No. 4: TTAB Reverses Rejection of Downloadable Software Specimen Showing Mark in On-Screen Display


Since 1934, LAIPLA has been educating and connecting members of the local intellectual property legal community

Pages

About 
Events
Membership
Sponsorship
Contact
Privacy Policy

Search
Contact

LAIPLA
1621 W 25th Street
Box 633
San Pedro, CA 90732
Phone: (323) 285-1654
Fax: ( 310) 878-0517
Email: office@laipla.net

© 2025 Los Angeles Intellectual Property Law Association. All Rights Reserved | Website design by SafeHouse Web.