Abstract
Professor Linford, unlike Caesar’s Antony, seeks not only to bury Abercrombie, but to praise it, at least in part. Using linguistic evidence, both historical and experimental, he would relocate a bobbled boundary—from the descriptive–suggestive transition to the suggestive–arbitrary transition—and thereby establish a reformed template for sorting word marks according to their source-signifying strength. The basic difference between acquired and inherent distinctiveness not only remains in Linford’s account, however; it draws new strength from insights about semantic change. Behold, Abercrombie 2.0! His recent article, which is both provocative and engaging, continues the reconstructive work Linford began in his critique of the conventional view that a generic word can never serve as a trademark, even if a substantial share of consumers have come to perceive it as a source signifier.
Repository Citation
Joseph S. Miller,
Abercrombie 2.0 - Can We Get There from Here? The Thoughts on 'Suggestive Fair Use'
, 77 Ohio St. L.J. Furthermore 1
(2016),
Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/fac_artchop/1055