PIJIP Faculty Co-Director Christine Haight Farley coauthored a blog post with Professor Margaret Chon of Seattle University on trademark extraterritoriality in the wake of the Supreme Court decision in Abitron v. Hetronic. The Supreme Court held the Lanham Act does not extend to trademark infringement outside of the U.S. and reversed and remanded to the Tenth Circuit. The Lanham Act is a 1946 federal statute that seeks to protect the owner of an already federally registered trademark from the use of similar trademarks likely to cause consumer confusion or trademark dilution.

Professors Farley and Chon note:

"Yet the very nature of the Abitron dispute—between a U.S. plaintiff (Hetronic) and its former Austrian and German distributors (together referred to here as Abitron))—vividly illustrates that territories are highly permeable and possibly even anachronistic in an age of globalized commerce and trade, especially in IP cases where intangibles know no borders."

Click here for the full blog post.

Christine Haight Farley is a Professor of Law at American University Washington College of Law. She specializes in information law and teaches courses on contract law, intellectual property, advertising law, and art law. Her current research focuses on branding in the age of data-driven advertising and the over protection of design. She serves as Co-Faculty Director of the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property and previously served as Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs.