The Semiotic Account of Trademark Doctrine and Trademark Culture
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Description
Semiotics is the study of signs and sign systems. While linguistics concerns itself specifically with human speech, semiotics investigates “the processes and effects of the production and reproduction, reception and circulation of meaning in all forms, used by all kinds of agent[s] of communication.” Semiotic thought developed into its own distinctive field of inquiry in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries at a time strangely coincident with the development of modern trademark doctrine. It was during this period that the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure projected a bold extension of his research in structural linguistics: “A science that studies the life of signs within society is conceivable ... I shall call it semiology (from Greek semeîon ‘sign’). Semiology would show what constitutes signs, what laws govern them.” Since Saussure’s time, semiotics (or semiology) has developed into a sophisticated systems-theoretical field of knowledge of enormous reach and ambition. The semiotic tradition forms the foundation of the past century’s structuralist and poststructuralist thought across the humanities. In this short chapter, I will seek to show how semiotic concepts can be applied to clarify and ameliorate fundamental areas of trademark doctrine and policy. Elsewhere I have set forth at length a semiotic analysis of trademark law. My purpose here is not to reprise that account, nor is it simply to celebrate, as a matter of intellectual history, the parallel development of, and many striking homologies between, semiotic thought and trademark doctrine. Nor do I seek to suggest that the law should simply defer to the authority of the semiotic—rather than the economic—tradition. Instead, my purpose is more pragmatic. It is to demonstrate that the semiotic account of trademark law is worthwhile because, as a descriptive matter, it explains many areas of trademark doctrine better than other accounts and because, as a normative matter, it recommends practical and sensible improvements in the doctrine that other accounts are unable—or unwilling—to recommend. To demonstrate this, I will set forth here only the most basic of semiotic concepts because that is all that is needed to achieve this goal.
Source Publication
Trademark Law and Theory: A Handbook of Contemporary Research
Source Editors/Authors
Graeme B. Dinwoodie, Mark D. Janis
Publication Date
2008
Recommended Citation
Beebe, Barton C., "The Semiotic Account of Trademark Doctrine and Trademark Culture" (2008). Faculty Chapters. 236.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/236
