Texas A&M Law Review Volume 8 Issue 2 2-11-2021 Is the Word "Consumer" Biasing Trademark Law? Dustin Marlan University of Massachusetts Dartmouth School of Law,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/lawreview Part of the Consumer Protection Law Commons, and the Intellectual Property Law Commons Recommended Citation Dustin Marlan, Is the Word "Consumer" Biasing Trademark Law?, 8 Tex. A&M L. Rev. 367 (2021). Available at: https://doi.org/10.37419/LR.V8.I2.4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Texas A&M Law Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Texas A&M Law Review by an authorized editor of Texas A&M Law Scholarship. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. \\jciprod01\productn\T\TWL\8-2\TWL203.txt unknown Seq: 1 3-FEB-21 13:41 IS THE WORD “CONSUMER” BIASING TRADEMARK LAW? by: Dustin Marlan* ABSTRACT Our trademark law uses the term “consumer” constantly, reflexively, and unconsciously to label the subject of its purpose—the purchasing public. Ac- cording to the U.S. Supreme Court, trademark law has “a specialized mission: to help consumers identify goods and services they wish to purchase, as well as those they want to avoid.” As one leading commentator puts it, “trademarks are a property of consumers’ minds,” and “the consumer, we are led to be- lieve, is the measure of all things in trademark law.” Much criticism has been rightly levied against trademark law’s treatment of the consumer as passive, ignorant, and gullible.