Testing trade mark law's image of the consumer (ARC Linkage Project administered by the University of Melbourne) (2012-2015)

Trade mark law rests on assumptions about how consumers respond to brands, but these assumptions have not been tested empirically. Although academics working in fields such as psychology and marketing have spent much time investigating consumer behaviour, they have not engaged directly with the law¿s starting points or how consumer reactions are framed in legal proceedings. This means that trade mark scholars and academics working in other disciplines often talk past one another, and courts have been reluctant to engage with evidence presented by experts on consumer behaviour. This project will address these gaps by bringing together a multidisciplinary team to identify the law¿s assumptions and subject them to rigorous empirical analysis.