Brand Bible

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BRAND BIBLE40

(Text)

TRADEmARkS

AND ThE

GRowTh of

coNSUmER

pAckAGED

GooDS







04

 as the rst millennium b.c., arti-

sans would stamp a unique symbol onto their

wares to prove their provenance. This was useful

since the trade in these goods, such as earthen-

ware pots and other durables, could reach far and

wide, extending across the entire Mediterranean

world. These marks provided some assurance

as to their origin. This practice continued with

the growth of trade and commerce and became

commonplace during the rise and prominence

of the guilds of medieval Europe. However, as

today, these marks were certainly no guarantee

of authenticity.

One of the rst formal, mark-related laws was

implemented in England in 1266, during the

reign of King Henry III. The Bakers Marking Law

required bread makers to mark every loaf of bread

with pinpricks or stamps. The law was passed to

ensure that the bread met certain standards and

that bakers would be accountable for the goods

they produced.











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(Text)

Morton Salt

advertisement,

circa 1941

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The rst step toward legal protection for trade-

marks was the 1862 Merchandise Marks Act,

which made it illegal to knowingly copy anoth-

er’s mark for fraudulent purposes. However,

enforcing this law proved dicult, as it was

extremely hard to prove who had used the mark

rst. To solve this, in 1875, the United King-

dom passed the Trade Marks Registration Act,

which allowed for the formal registration of

unique trademarks with the United Kingdom

Patent Oce, formally creating the infra-

structure for the modern consumer brand.

When the law went into eect on January1,

1876, the brewery, Bass Ale, registered the

world’s rst ocially recognized trade-

mark, the company’s famous red triangle

logo; the symbol remains in use to this

day.

In the United States, protection of

trademarks was not as well dened

at the time. Although the United

States Constitution established

the legal groundwork for a patent

system, it wasn’t until Congress

enacted the Federal Trade Mark

Act, in 1870, that that brands began

to enjoy legal protection.



The rst known case of fraud concerning a trade-

mark was Southern v. How in 1618 England: A

prominent clothier accused a rival of axing his

mark upon an inferior product. While the case was

ultimately decided for the plainti, the government

didn’t institute many protections to assure the

rights of the rst users of a particular mark.

Indeed, long after this rst legal challenge, most

marks were seen as signatures, simply denot-

ing authorship. They were not utilized to secure

trade protections, nor were they seen as a means of

protecting buyers from fraudulent goods. Beyond

the sale of luxury goods that enjoyed a prosper-

ous trade across regions, most goods that entered

into commerce did so, and remained so, at the local

level. Therefore, the purchaser and seller typically

had an innate trust for each other. This trust, often

with roots in a relationship developed over time,

existed irrespective of the maker’s mark. Yet all of

this changed with the Industrial Revolution.

The onset of the Industrial Revolution in England

brought with it an explosion of goods and services

for sale as well as a proliferation of new consumers

with the means to purchase these products. Most

importantly, for the rst time, goods were being

mass produced at a central location and shipped

to far-ung locales. It was during this time that

brand names and trademarks became increasingly

important. In order to protect their oerings—and

prots—from fraud, manufacturers in England

began clamoring for ocial legal protection.

Early Bass Ale

packaging

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