Private Law Theory

The origins of trademark law have long been disputed; some legal scholars recognize JG v Samford or Sanford’s Case (1584), later described in Southern v How, 79 Eng Rep 1243 (1618) as a case in which a clothier had misappropriated his rival’s mark, as the first example of a trademark dispute in the English legal tradition. The early twentieth-century trademark scholar Frank Schecter, however, dismissed Southern v How as an unreliably-reported outlier. His view has been echoed in more recent publications, despite Professor Sir John Baker’s discovery, translation, and publication of multiple reports of Sanford’s Case four decades ago … (more)

[Barbara Lauriat, The Docket,30 May 2024]