Non-Traditional Trademark Protection as (Non-Traditional) Means of Cultural Control

Trademarks, or brands, are symbols whose initial purpose is providing information about the source of a product. Yet, with the course of time, high-end brands have developed into symbols providing information about their owner’s status rather than about the sold goods. This phenomenon naturally attracts imitation and status cheating, offering new challenges to established trademark doctrines. This chapter outlines the different legal perceptions of imitation in the U.S. and Continental Europe, while placing these perceptions into broader cultural contexts. It then focuses on the U.S. legal view on imitation of trademarks that serve as status symbols, pointing out that this view is “non-traditional” in American context, in the sense that it is inconsistent with U.S. traditional cultural values.