Introduction

This chapter will focus on the implications of recent developments in trade mark law for branding. It will address how the logo, as a sign of the brand, is legally constituted as a trade mark – that is, as a kind of intellectual property – and how this legal constitution as property supports the valuation and exploitation of the brand as a commercial asset. The focus will be on the role of trade mark law in the organization of relations between firms in producer markets rather than on the relations between firms and final consumers that has been the focus of my own and much other previous work on brands. It will be argued that the law contributes to the action of the brand as a new market modality or market cultural form, helping to organize the rise of a trade mark style of management. It will thus be suggested that trade mark law is a significant actor in the organization of producer markets, operating so as to consolidate and legitimate the use of branding as an object or mode of capital accumulation in a mediated economy.

What is a market?

There are many kinds of markets, but the concern here will be with what have been called producer markets. As the sociologist Harrison White points out, an increasing number of markets are more than sites for direct transactions between buyers and sellers.