'Unravelling Unfair Competition Law's Misunderstood Development' - Christine Haight Farleya: CIPIL Seminar

Professor Christine Haight Farley (American University) spoke on the topic of "Unravelling Unfair Competition Law's Misunderstood Development" at a seminar on 5 November 2019. Tracing the development of U.S. unfair competition law reveals a sequence of events some of which we seem to have forgotten. First, we learn that unfair competition law has always been baffling. The accepted metaphor that trademark law is a species of the genus of unfair competition law distorts both the actual history and the relationship between the two. Second, this back-story suggests that a particularly innovative treaty--incorporated by reference into the Lanham Act--was meant to be the vehicle for unfair competition protection. The misunderstanding of this history has put pressure on trademark claims causing them to expand into unfair competition claims. The result is maximum flexibility in trademark law and an absence of constraints in unfair competition law. For more information see the CIPIL website at http://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk