Fall 2025
Class meeting time in WH 2A: Monday and Wednesday 1:00-2:20 p.m.
Office Hours: Monday and Wednesday 2:20-4:20 p.m. (after our Trademark Law class) and 7:20-7:50 p.m. (after my Civil Procedure class)
Required Materials: (1) Version 12 of Professor Barton Beebe's casebook Trademark Law: An Open-Access Casebook (June 2025), which is available for free download at this link and (2) other materials posted on this webpage or on Canvas.
Reading Assignments
Introduction
8/18: Read pages 1-25 of the Beebe Casebook (CB); Check out the USPTO’s Trademarks webpage and review one or more videos on the Trademark Information Network webpage
I Establishing Trademark Rights
A. Trademark Distinctiveness
8/20: CB 26-51
8/25: CB 51-88
8/27: CB 72-111 (skip Elliot)
9/1: Labor Day Holiday - no class
9/3: CB 126-154
9/8: CB 154-190; Test yourself: Select a product brand that you use or like, search for that phrase or personal name claimed as a trademark by clicking “Trademark Search System” at this link, and review the information about the trademark registration(s) if there are any (first try General search, and then search using the Wordmark option). Then be prepared to talk in class about whether that mark is inherently distinctive (or not) and how to classify that mark for a certain good or service on the Abercrombie spectrum or based on any other rules we have discussed in class.
9/10: CB 154-190; Students absent on 9/8: talk about your mark from the 9/8 assignment
B. Bars to Protection
9/15: CB 190-226
9/17: CB 216-259 [Note: this class and our class on 9/22 will cover more pages than past classes, so give yourself sufficient time to do the reading. The reading for 9/24 is only 22 pages.]
9/22: CB 259-306 [Note: I will lecture about the material we did not cover on 9/17]
C. Use in Commerce as a Prerequisite for Trademark Rights
9/24: CB 306-237
II. Enforcement of Trademark Rights
III. Defensive Doctrines in Trademark Law
IV. False Advertising
V. Right of Publicity
VI. Remedies