Barbara Lauriat, ‘Borrowing Goodwill’, 67 Boston College Law Review 1127 (2026). Trademark law in the United States requires use of a mark in commerce as the basis for both acquisition and infringement of exclusive rights. This requirement is justified, in part, as a way of focusing trademark on its core purpose – protecting the mark owner’s goodwill that arises from such use. Most of the rest of the world relies on the formality of registration as the basis for protection. How did the law in the United States take this nearly-unique evolutionary path? In her extensively-researched article, Professor Barbara Lauriat succeeds in correcting the record about this question by lengthening the relevant historical period to at least the sixteenth century in England and by showing that commercial goodwill had an established recognition in both business practice and in common law as a business’s residual asset distinct from its trademarks … (more)
[Michael W Carroll, JOTWELL, 10 September 2026]
Leave a Reply