{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/105054"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/105054","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Empirical study of the aesthetic functionality on color trademarks","abstract":"Although trademark law permits the protection of “trade dress” (distinctive product shape, ornamentation, and packaging), the enforcement of too strong a property can stifle competition. U.S. courts apply the “aesthetic functionality” doctrine in trademark infringement cases to address this concern. “Aesthetic functionality” refers to non-reputation-based advantages protecting trade dress might provide. In a specific case, the judge decides whether the disputed trade dress is aesthetically functional. If so, the trade dress is denied protection, even if it identifies the source of the product to consumers. The doctrine applies especially relevantly to color trademarks, a sub-category of trade dress. I explore the historical case law and point out three problems in determining a color’s aesthetic functionality: (1) Judges lack tools to diagnose the de-facto advantage a color might have, and their decisions are often intuitive and speculative; (2) Judges rarely evaluate properly the substitutability of alternative colors; (3) a color’s non-reputation-based advantage (pure attractiveness) is hard to isolate from its reputation as a trademark. This dissertation tries to address the first and second problems. I review psychological and economic research--psychological studies of color effects and economic measures of anticompetitive costs--to improve the process of diagnosing a color’s de-facto advantages and evaluating alternative colors’ substitutability. At the end of the dissertation, I propose and illustrate three approaches to evaluate the anti-competitive effect of color in specific cases: psychological guideposts, market data analysis, and consumer survey tools.","abstract_html":"Although trademark law permits the protection of “trade dress” (distinctive product shape, ornamentation, and packaging), the enforcement of too strong a property can stifle competition. U.S. courts apply the “aesthetic functionality” doctrine in trademark infringement cases to address this concern. “Aesthetic functionality” refers to non-reputation-based advantages protecting trade dress might provide. In a specific case, the judge decides whether the disputed trade dress is aesthetically functional. If so, the trade dress is denied protection, even if it identifies the source of the product to consumers. The doctrine applies especially relevantly to color trademarks, a sub-category of trade dress. I explore the historical case law and point out three problems in determining a color’s aesthetic functionality: (1) Judges lack tools to diagnose the de-facto advantage a color might have, and their decisions are often intuitive and speculative; (2) Judges rarely evaluate properly the substitutability of alternative colors; (3) a color’s non-reputation-based advantage (pure attractiveness) is hard to isolate from its reputation as a trademark. This dissertation tries to address the first and second problems. I review psychological and economic research--psychological studies of color effects and economic measures of anticompetitive costs--to improve the process of diagnosing a color’s de-facto advantages and evaluating alternative colors’ substitutability. At the end of the dissertation, I propose and illustrate three approaches to evaluate the anti-competitive effect of color in specific cases: psychological guideposts, market data analysis, and consumer survey tools.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Wang, Xiaoren"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"J.S.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Law","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Heald, Paul J.","Lawless, Robert M.","Robbennolt, Jennifer K.","Mehta, Ravi"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2019,"date_issued":"2019-08-23T20:36:02Z","date_published":"2019-08-23T20:36:02Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:44Z","subjects":["Empirical, Aesthetic functionality, Color trademarks"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2019 Xiaoren Wang"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/105054","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Heald, Paul J.","Lawless, Robert M.","Robbennolt, Jennifer K.","Mehta, Ravi"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Wang, Xiaoren"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2019-08-23T20:36:02Z","2021-08-24T09:15:34Z","2019-04-18","2019-05"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Law"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["J.S.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Empirical, Aesthetic functionality, Color trademarks"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2019 Xiaoren Wang"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/105054"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Although trademark law permits the protection of “trade dress” (distinctive product shape, ornamentation, and packaging), the enforcement of too strong a property can stifle competition. U.S. courts apply the “aesthetic functionality” doctrine in trademark infringement cases to address this concern. “Aesthetic functionality” refers to non-reputation-based advantages protecting trade dress might provide. In a specific case, the judge decides whether the disputed trade dress is aesthetically functional. If so, the trade dress is denied protection, even if it identifies the source of the product to consumers. The doctrine applies especially relevantly to color trademarks, a sub-category of trade dress. I explore the historical case law and point out three problems in determining a color’s aesthetic functionality: (1) Judges lack tools to diagnose the de-facto advantage a color might have, and their decisions are often intuitive and speculative; (2) Judges rarely evaluate properly the substitutability of alternative colors; (3) a color’s non-reputation-based advantage (pure attractiveness) is hard to isolate from its reputation as a trademark. This dissertation tries to address the first and second problems. I review psychological and economic research--psychological studies of color effects and economic measures of anticompetitive costs--to improve the process of diagnosing a color’s de-facto advantages and evaluating alternative colors’ substitutability. At the end of the dissertation, I propose and illustrate three approaches to evaluate the anti-competitive effect of color in specific cases: psychological guideposts, market data analysis, and consumer survey tools.","Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2021-05-01","The student, Xiaoren Wang, accepted the attached license on 2019-04-18 at 00:16.","The student, Xiaoren Wang, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2019-04-18 at 00:18.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2019-04-18 at 12:45.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #13726 on 2019-08-22 at 15:07:21","Made available in DSpace on 2019-08-23T20:36:02Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 WANG-DISSERTATION-2019.pdf: 1301962 bytes, checksum: 96940625ca1f6ef28edac7e7600de211 (MD5) LICENSE.txt: 4209 bytes, checksum: 7eeae3225aa78deb2abab66a084afceb (MD5) Previous issue date: 2019-04-18","Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 112173 Lift date: 2021-08-23T20:36:18Z Reason: Author requested U of Illinois access only (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD system","U of I Only Restriction Lifted for Item 112173 on 2021-08-24T09:15:34Z."]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Empirical study of the aesthetic functionality on color trademarks"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Heald, Paul J.","Lawless, Robert M.","Robbennolt, Jennifer K.","Mehta, Ravi"],"dc:creator":["Wang, Xiaoren"],"dc:date":["2019-08-23T20:36:02Z","2021-08-24T09:15:34Z","2019-04-18","2019-05"],"dc:description":["Although trademark law permits the protection of “trade dress” (distinctive product shape, ornamentation, and packaging), the enforcement of too strong a property can stifle competition. U.S. courts apply the “aesthetic functionality” doctrine in trademark infringement cases to address this concern. “Aesthetic functionality” refers to non-reputation-based advantages protecting trade dress might provide. In a specific case, the judge decides whether the disputed trade dress is aesthetically functional. If so, the trade dress is denied protection, even if it identifies the source of the product to consumers. The doctrine applies especially relevantly to color trademarks, a sub-category of trade dress. I explore the historical case law and point out three problems in determining a color’s aesthetic functionality: (1) Judges lack tools to diagnose the de-facto advantage a color might have, and their decisions are often intuitive and speculative; (2) Judges rarely evaluate properly the substitutability of alternative colors; (3) a color’s non-reputation-based advantage (pure attractiveness) is hard to isolate from its reputation as a trademark. This dissertation tries to address the first and second problems. I review psychological and economic research--psychological studies of color effects and economic measures of anticompetitive costs--to improve the process of diagnosing a color’s de-facto advantages and evaluating alternative colors’ substitutability. At the end of the dissertation, I propose and illustrate three approaches to evaluate the anti-competitive effect of color in specific cases: psychological guideposts, market data analysis, and consumer survey tools.","Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2021-05-01","The student, Xiaoren Wang, accepted the attached license on 2019-04-18 at 00:16.","The student, Xiaoren Wang, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2019-04-18 at 00:18.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2019-04-18 at 12:45.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #13726 on 2019-08-22 at 15:07:21","Made available in DSpace on 2019-08-23T20:36:02Z (GMT). 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