Corpus Linguistics in Trademark Cases

Dictionaries and corpora may both be used as evidence to help decide legal cases. In certain trademark disputes—and in this paper—the central issue is whether a disputed term exhibits the linguistic behavior characteristic of a name (identifying the source or producer of a product or service) or the linguistic behavior characteristic of an ordinary common noun. Corpora are particularly useful in resolving such trademark disputes, but using corpora for this purpose requires attention to several important considerations, both linguistic and non-linguistic. This paper explores several of those linguistic considerations and discusses several legal cases involving well-known terms.