Trademark Rights and Consumer Perception:The Tension Between a Normative and an Empirical Assessment of Consumer Perception in EU Trademark Law

In sum, the foregoing study thus shows the current tension in EU trademark law between a normative and an empirical approach to consumer perception. Admittedly, the EU trademark law system provides several legal tools to keep the system balanced. However, this study also illustrates that some legal instruments may not be applied in a sufficiently effective way. Indeed, the trademark system might give trademark owners dysfunctional incentives to invest in signs that should remain freely available to other traders on the market or the public in general. Particularly, the distinctiveness requirem... Mehr ...