Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): Professor David Higgins
Full text for this publication is not currently held within this repository. Alternative links are provided below where available.
This chapter explains how Arthur Guinness, Son & Co, protected its trade marks before 1914. By the late nineteenth century, Guinness’ Extra Stout, and Foreign Extra Stout, had acquired an unrivalled reputation in Irish, British and global markets. This stout was supplied in casks to a diverse range of independent bottlers who applied labels on bottles containing this stout. Because Guinness did not own a tied estate, or bottle its own products before 1914, its stouts were especially vulnerable to misrepresentation by bottlers. Some export bottlers misrepresented the Guinness brand using their own labels. To address these problems, and to protect the reputation of its stouts, Guinness obtained intelligence from its network of agents which permitted an appraisal of the costs and benefits of litigation, as well as sending stern letters to the export bottlers. One aspect of the company’s defence which was unique was the Trade Mark Label Agreement (TMLA): signatories to this agreement were forbidden to supply the ‘brown beers’ (stout) of other brewers. The TMLA acted as a double guarantee of quality which was especially valuable because the company eschewed marketing before 1914.
Author(s): Higgins DM
Editor(s): Robert Bone and Lionel Bently
Publication type: Book Chapter
Publication status: Published
Book Title: Research Handbook on the History of Trade Mark Law
Year: 2024
Pages: 284–326
Print publication date: 15/10/2024
Online publication date: 03/10/2024
Acceptance date: 01/10/2019
Series Title: Research Handbooks in Intellectual Property Series
Publisher: Edward Elgar
Place Published: London
URL: https://doi.org/10.4337/9781788973106
DOI: 10.4337/9781788973106
Library holdings: Search Newcastle University Library for this item
ISBN: 9781788973090