Trade dress: The increasing importance of an ancient yet new form of intellectual property protection

Information- and rivalry-based perspectives on reactive patent litigation strategy

“…The recognition of asymmetric information, competitive rivalry in strategic groups and market positions in relation to a reactive patent litigation strategy has a number of implications in legal, economic and strategic studies. First, along with the trend toward patent rights becoming more readily enforceable against infringers in many countries, many companies regard their patents as a useful means of gaining a competitive advantage and achieving an improvement in their commercial position in the global marketplace (Harriss & Newiss, 2001;O'Connor, 2014;Pathak et al, 2013). The scenarios in the study can encourage managers to actively consider a large repertoire of diverse and related real situations, which give managers extensive experience in deciding what is and what is not important in a given patent lawsuit case.…”

“…Thirdly, due to the difficulty in measuring the asymmetric information and competitive rivalry in the strategic group, previous studies use simulation methods or case studies to explore the relationship between the strategic group, asymmetric information and decisionmaking (e.g., Mas-Ruiz et al, 2005, 2014. Differing from previous research, this study develops measurable items for asymmetric information and competitive rivalry in strategic groups by using experimental design methods.…”

“…While top management teams strive to identify the importance of patent litigation (Siedel, 2002;Somaya, 2003), how to manage the legal aspects of business becomes one of the most critical capabilities to achieving a successful corporate strategy (Shanley & Peteraf, 2004). The existing literature on patent litigation focuses on the legitimizing aspects of intellectual property law (Bagley & Clarkson, 2003;O'Connor, 2014;Suchman, 1995), the political aspects of intellectual property law (Hillman & Hitt, 1999), as well as other "non-market strategies" that firms pursue to help in shaping the external regulatory environment within which they do business (Pathak, Xavier-Oliveira, & Laplume, 2013;Siedel, 2002;Somaya & McDaniel, 2012). However, scholars devote little attention to the importance of managing the legal dimensions of businesses (Ring, Bigley, D'Aunno, & Khanna, 2005).…”

Case study – trade dress and brand protection in Thailand’s copier paper business

“…Similarly, in the USA, there is a judicial resistance against the protection of marketing themes and sales technique. The US Patent Office (O'Connor, 2014) and European trademark law (Mitchell and Scardamaglia, 2018) systematically rejects trade dress applications on the basis that the claimed feature is descriptive or contains some level of common functionality.…”