Trademarks and Free Speech

Print and digital versions of the book are available for purchase on Cambridge University Press's website (use the code RAMSEY25 at checkout for a 20% discount), on Amazon, at Walmart, and at Barnes & Noble and other bookstores around the world ($38 for the digital and paperback version; $115 for the hardcover version). In addition, the Introduction and Chapter 1 of the book are posted on SSRN. Faculty and students: if your university has a subscription to Cambridge Core, you can access a free digital version of the book - click on "check access" at this link.  

This book explores how trademark laws can conflict with the right to freedom of expression and proposes a framework for evaluating free speech challenges to trademark registration and enforcement laws. It also explains why granting trademark rights in informational terms, political messages, widely used phrases, decorative product features, and other language and designs with substantial pre-existing communicative value can harm free expression and fair competition. Lisa P. Ramsey encourages governments to not register or protect broad trademark rights in these types of inherently valuable expression. She also recommends that trademark statutes explicitly allow certain informational, expressive, and decorative fair uses of another's trademark, and proposes other speech-protective and pro-competitive reforms of trademark law for consideration by legislatures, courts, and trademark offices in the United States, Europe, and other countries.

Reviews

Endorsements of Trademarks and Free Speech

"This excellent book explores the troubled relationship between trademark protection and free expression. Lisa Ramsey successfully interweaves a description of the relevant trademark law with a critique of how it is framed and applied, while identifying the reforms needed adequately to protect free expression. It is an authoritative account deserving wide attention."

Jennifer Davis - Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law, University of Cambridge

"Lisa Ramsey has established herself over time as one of the world’s leading scholars on the relationship of trademark law and free speech. Her rich scholarship on the topic is now systematized and expanded with the latest developments in this inspiring book. A must read for anyone interested in the subject!"

Christophe Geiger - Professor and Director of the Innovation Law and Ethics Observatory, Luiss University, Rome

"From registration to enforcement and secondary liability, this book reveals the chilling effect of current trademark law and practice on free speech. It also offers the ultimate cure. Lisa Ramsey synthesizes the full spectrum of regulatory approaches and scholarly thinking - across legal traditions and regions worldwide - in an unprecedented catalogue of reform proposals."

Martin Senftleben - Amsterdam Law School, author of The Copyright/Trademark Interface

"Lisa Ramsey's book is a comprehensive argument for reforming trademark law with greater attention to free speech principles. Rich with examples of overclaiming, it makes a strong case that both communication and product markets would be better off with a narrower trademark law focused on protecting consumers from deception that matters to them, rather than handing control of ordinary words to single owners across a broad swath of the economy."

Rebecca Tushnet - Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment, Harvard Law School

Other commentary about Trademarks and Free Speech

Orly Lobel, New Book - Trademarks and Free Speech by  Lisa Ramsey, PrawfsBlawg (Jan. 22, 2026) 

Jeremy Paul, Book of the Week, Tax Prof Blog (Jan. 23, 2026)