The History of Trademarks

My paper focuses on the early development of American federal trademark law, roughly in the period between 1870 and 1905. During this time period, American federal trademark law was created, weathered a constitutional crisis, and was reinvented several times and with a variety of motivations before reaching a relatively stable point. One goal of this project is to present a clear and detailed description of how the law developed in this time period, as well as why the law evolved in the way that it did. A related goal is to analyze various themes in this early development that may underlie modern arguments about trademark law, such as discussions about the relationship of trademark to other forms of intellectual property. Evaluating both the arguments and debates about the law during these formative years as well as the assumptions made without conflict at that time may provide a valuable body of knowledge for modern trademark scholars.