title: Recognition in context: Implications for trade mark law.
abstract: Context effects in recognition have played a major role in evaluating theories of recognition. Understanding how context impacts recognition is also important for making sound trade mark law. Consumers attempting to discriminate between the brand they are looking for and a look-alike product often have to differentiate products which share a great deal of common context: positioning on the supermarket shelf, the type of store, aspects of the packaging, or brand claims. Trade mark and related laws aim to protect brands and reduce consumer confusion, but courts assessing allegations of trade mark infringement often lack careful empirical evidence concerning the impact of brand and context similarity, and, in the absence of such evidence, make assumptions about how consumers respond to brands that downplay the importance of context and focus on the similarity of registered marks. The experiments reported in this paper aimed to test certain common assumptions in trade mark law, providing evidence that shared context can cause mistakes even where brand similarity is low.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, 4072, Australia. mh@psy.uq.edu.au.
authors.forename: Michael S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Humphreys
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Kimberley A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: McFarlane
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Jennifer S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Burt
authors.affiliation: School of Business, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia.
authors.forename: Sarah J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Kelly
authors.affiliation: School of Law, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, USA.
authors.forename: Kimberlee G
authors.initials: KG
authors.lastname: Weatherall
authors.affiliation: School of Law, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.|School of Law, The University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, USA.
authors.forename: Robert G
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Burrell
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D040541:Marketing / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Context; Global matching; Recognition memory; Trade mark law