Stories From The Stacks

Print and sell posters with the Coke-a-Cola logo on them and prepare to get sued. For corporations today, brands are valued property to be aggressively defended from unauthorized use. This was not always the case. The proprietary attitude taken by companies toward their brands developed in the context of a growing consumer economy, and under the tutelage of lawyers. In this episode of Stories from the Stacks, legal scholar Oren Bracha, professor at the University of Texas at Austin, discusses his research into the legal history of branding and trademarks. Bracha observes that the function of brands in influencing consumer behavior had been recognized by marketers by the turn of the twentieth century, and that the function of brands as corporate property developed subsequently as a result of the intersection of business practice with the legal profession. Using Hagley Library collections, including the Seagram and DuPont company records, Bracha discovered how the proprietary attitude toward brands translate