A multimodal social semiotic approach to shape in the forensic analysis of trademarks
pp. 283-306
in: Anne Wagner, Richard K. Sherwin (eds), Law, culture and visual studies, Berlin, Springer, 2014Abstract
This chapter addresses the lack in explicative power of the forensic analysis of trademarks in the assessment of likelihood of confusion between colliding trademarks faced with cases in which the stylistic rendition of the marks is the decisive factor. The chapter analyses the assessment of likelihood of confusion and concludes that legal doctrine regards the event of trademark perception as mainly psychological. The chapter proceeds to examine the productivity of regarding the event as social as well and proposes a grammatical approach to describing the stylistic rendition of trademarks.