On March 15th the IP Conversazione took place in Oxford as part of the 17th Annual Oxford International Intellectual Property Law Moot. The moot pitted students of IP law from around the world against each other to argue a trade mark case involving two identical trade marks used for different but reasonably similar goods. Roger Teichman and I were invited to speak to participants about work related to this question. This post summarises some of my comments and adds some details that have emerged since.

Philosophy of Trademarks

Roger drew our attention to Borges’ classification of animals that includes headings such as: “embalmed ones” and “others”. This classification, though odd,  might well serve a purpose and it can be used to group animals together that are similar with respect to the classification. Roger used the example to illustrate a point: a judgement that animals or goods are similar requires a…