• Syllabus and readings (home page)
• Important course information: materials, mechanics, policies, and grading
• Writing assignments and related instructions
• AI Policy (NEW for 2026)
• Open Educational Resources (OER) copyright and permissions information

The course will meet on Mondays and Wednesdays from 10:30 am to 11:50 am. The class will meet on ZOOM rather than face to face. Class meetings will be recorded, and the class recordings will be posted afterward to YouTube.

ABOUT THE COURSE

Trademark Law is a three-credit limited enrollment course for upper-level law students, with enrollment limited to 50 students. No prior experience with intellectual property law is required.  Students are expected to remember, understand, and apply what they learned in first-year courses in Contracts, Property, and Torts.

The course is LAW 5694 in the University of Pittsburgh course catalog.

PREREQUISITE

There is no prerequisite for this course. Students are expected to have learned the fundamentals of legal research, legal analysis, and legal writing.

COURSE OBJECTIVES AND THE OFFICIAL COURSE DESCRIPTION

The official course description (University of Pittsburgh course number 5694) is this:

Trademark law deals with legal bases for obtaining and enforcing interests in commercial symbols, including logos, slogans, and the like, which play central roles both in modern commercial transactions (selling and buying stuff) and in daily conversation. Trademarks are partly information and partly the stuff of speech. The Trademark Law course will teach you about the many roles that trademark law plays in positioning trademarks as part of business strategies, commercial markets and other institutions, and everyday life. For producers of goods and services, how does trademark law help them make money? For competitors, for purchasers of goods and services, and for firms and citizens generally, how does trademark law preserve the power to access and use trademarks as information about commercial things, information that shapes about the commercial sphere, and information that guides daily experience (if that’s separate from the commercial sphere). The course will teach those things in the context of teaching the skills of trademark lawyering. How do practicing lawyers work with clients? How do practicing lawyers develop and exercise professional judgment? How do practicing lawyers solve trademark problems? The course will put students in the role of practicing lawyers and teach them to think, write, and act as lawyers generally and especially as trademark lawyers.

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

The following provides a fuller description of the goals of the course. In Trademark Law, students will:

• Learn the fundamental nuts and bolts of American trademark doctrine, including how trademark fits into related schemes in international law and in patent and copyright law. Much of the reading is oriented to nuts and bolts questions. Students are expected to master much of the basics of this material on their own. Via classroom discussion and the required writing assignments, students will explore the justifications for the law and will extend and apply the nuts and bolts into newer and unclear contexts.
• Learn many of the theories and policies that underlie trademark law, and many of the practical consequences and questions that trademark lawyers and their clients face. Much of the classroom discussion will be oriented to theory and policy and to consequences and questions. Why? The nuts and bolts of trademark law cover a landscape that is broader than a single semester can cover, and the nuts and bolts change all the time. Therefore, we focus only partly on nuts and bolts. By contrast, trademark theory and policy, and trademark consequences and questions, are more conceptually complex, help integrate the different areas of the law, are (paradoxically) more durable, are critical to understanding how to use trademark in practice, and for all of those reasons are more important. Students are expected to come to class prepared to engage in discussions that relate nuts and bolts to theory and policy and then to consequences.
• Build on prior experience in the law. It is expected that students will recall and be able to apply the fundamental doctrines and policies of contract law, property law, and tort law.
• Understand law and policy in the context of being a lawyer, that is, in the context of representing clients. Simply knowing law and policy for oneself is not enough. Lawyers (and therefore law students) must be able to situate their knowledge in the context of others’ problems. Lawyers must be effective at identifying risks, understanding problems and opportunities, and using practical judgment – informed by legal expertise but also informed by context, history, and “looking around corners” to help clients. Doing that starts with effectively diagnosing problems, legal and otherwise.  [Note: references to “problem solving” that appeared in earlier versions of this text have been deleted. Lawyers do more than, and sometimes do less than, simply “solve problems.”] I will rarely ask students to give me the correct answer to a legal question. I will frequently ask students to diagnose problem(s), to explore and assess possible solutions, and to exercise their judgment in counseling others and advocating on their behalf. Trademark law – the subject – can be fun, entertaining, and challenging, but Trademark Law – the course – is all of those things and more. Why more? Because Trademark Law – the course – is mostly about what it means to be a lawyer in uncertain times and uncertain places.
• Write. This is a course in advanced legal writing as well as course in the substance of the law.  The basics of the law are learned best when students use the law.  In this class, that means writing. Students should expect to have their writing scrutinized and critiqued at the level of the word and the sentence, at the level of the concept and the structure of the argument, and at the level of substantive legal analysis. This course does not include a final exam. It does include a lot of intensive legal writing.

LET’S BE DIRECT

The paragraphs above and below can be summed up in a simple, brief sentence. This is a course about lawyering in general and legal writing in particular. Trademarks and trademark law happen to be useful (and engaging, and even entertaining) subject matter for teaching students how to become lawyers, including how to write as lawyers.

“Trademark Law” is about commercial symbols, logos, slogans, and about advertising, branding, and commerce generally.  A lot of trademark law has to do with how businesses and other organizations and groups organize and promote themselves.  A lot of it has to do with fair and unfair competition among businesses in a market economy, about consumer protection, and about ethical and unethical conduct.  Increasingly, a lot of it has to do with individual and collective speech and expression, some of it purposeful, much of it subconscious. Trademarks are both “out there” and in the head. And like all of social life, trademark law is increasingly about interactions among people, firms, data, and algorithms. Anyone who has watched TikTok or bought anything on Amazon.com should know exactly what that statement means.

What does trademark law (and some related bodies of law, such as copyright law, patent law, Constitutional law, and tort law, among other things) have to say about each of those things?  More important, what do lawyers, clients, and judges do with the law, to make arguments, draw legally-binding conclusions, resolve disputes, and plan their affairs? In what respects is trademark useful and effective?  In what respects it is inadequate and problematic? The semester will be dedicated to developing and discussing answers to those questions.

The required reading for the course consists primarily of cases and some statutes, primarily the federal Lanham Act. Each of these things, and the collection of them, constitutes “trademark law” in the US. There is no traditional law school casebook, but the reading is mostly formatted to mimic the appearance of a casebook.    

The first and longest section of the syllabus for the course lays out the “classical” or “traditional” law of trademark as it is found and applied today, though such a rapidly evolving body of law cannot be truly called “traditional” in a meaningful sense.

A second, shorter section of the syllabus highlights areas and ways in which “classical” or “traditional” trademark law applies weakly, or not at all, or with problematic consequences for various domains of business and individual behavior.

A third section of the syllabus steers (somewhat) away from trademark law’s focus on the consumer and on firms and markets, and toward intersections between trademark law, as a system of commercial law, and the law of free expression, notably the First Amendment of the US Constitution. People “use” trademarks to speak as well as to sell and shop. When and how might trademark law put limits on their expression?

Last, a final section of the syllabus introduces the idea that trademark law in its various legal forms – meaning: text, interpreted and enforced by courts – is eroding, in practice, in favor of private systems organized around algorithms.

For each student, the goal is not to memorize trademark law in all of its details.  To repeat:  The goal is not to memorize the details of the law.

Instead, I care about “the tools.” Each student’s first goal, and only a first goal, is to figure out and to be able to state – aloud, and in writing – the core, basic principles of trademark law.  Students (and lawyers) usually can look up the rules and their details, and the recommended LaFrance hornbook is a pretty good compendium of the rules.

Each student’s second goal is to be able to recognize that some conflict between people or organizations, or some negotiation possibly leading to a deal, poses one or more problems and one or more legal issues that those basic principles address.

Each student’s third goal is to be able to use those principles to make persuasive arguments and counter-arguments that help a client, or a judge, resolve that conflict or complete that negotiation. Each student should be able to use the basic rules as a set of basic tools.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

At the end of the course:

Each student should be able to write an outline of no more than 1-2 pages of all of the basic principles and concepts of trademark law.

Each student should be able to use those basic principles and concepts to identify basic legal and factual issues in a new problem (that is, one that the student has not encountered before), and to write up a short, coherent outline of those issues and how they should be addressed in the form of different arguments.

Each student should be able to determine, briefly and in writing, which arguments are likely to be good and persuasive ones, and which arguments are likely to be poor and unpersuasive ones, and in each instance, why.

Each student should be able to use an assessment of argumentative strengths and weaknesses in advising a client or other audience, in writing, as to one or more possible decisions or courses of action.

In short, each student should be able to DO trademark law in a basic and foundational way.

Added for Fall 2026

The Pitt Law Deans’ Office mandates the material in the next paragraph as a matter of bureaucratic compliance with American Bar Association accreditation standards. The material is not otherwise relevant to the content of this course, with respect to either the material that we will discuss, the work that students will do, or the manner in which either teaching or learning proceeds.

Specifically: Pitt Law has adopted a statement of formal program-level “learning outcomes” for the JD curriculum. Those outcomes refer to what Pitt Law JD students are expected to have learned by the time they graduate. Stated succinctly, the program-level outcomes consist of (i) legal analysis, research, and reasoning; (ii) problem-solving; (iii) communication; (iv) knowledge of substantive and procedural law; and (v) professionalism and ethics. Obviously, not every course, seminar, or other credit-bearing experience at Pitt Law will teach all five things or expect that students in that course (etc.) will learn something about each of those five things. The Deans’ Office does require, however, that each course (etc.) specify learning outcomes for that course that are linked explicitly, at least in an explanation such as this one, to the school’s program-level “learning outcomes.” Therefore: the “learning outcomes” for this seminar relate to all five of Pitt Law’s formal “learning outcomes” in blended ways rather than in a direct mapping of specific course-related learning outcome to specific program-related learning outcome.

GETTING THERE

The goal of learning how to DO trademark law in this course is accomplished in significant part through three hypothetical problems that each student will analyze and write up during the course of the semester.  By working on these problems each student will practice the skills they are trying to learn, and each student will practice those skills in ways that track the basics of what legal professionals need to master in order to succeed in their careers:  working collaboratively and communicating effectively in writing.

These three writing assignments will, collectively, constitute all of the graded work for the course.  We will discuss each hypothetical problem in class before the work product analyzing the problem is submitted.  For more on the writing assignments, see below and the Writing Assignments page for this course.

CLASS MEETING TIME AND PLACE

The first day of class is Monday, August 17, 2026.

The last day of class is Monday, November 16, 2026.

Class will meet Mondays and Wednesdays from 10:30 a.m. to 11:50 a.m.

We will meet online, rather than in a physical location in the Barco Law Building. There will be no face-to-face instruction.

The online venue for the class meetings will be the ZOOM videoconferencing service (pitt.zoom.us).

Instructions for how to access the ZOOM space will be distributed to enrolled students via email and via a course page in Canvas.

Each class session will be conducted “synchronously,” that is, in live or real time. I do not plan to record class meetings. Recordings from earlier editions of this course are available on YouTube and are identified on the syllabus.

As the semester begins, I will try to arrange for the law school to designate a classroom space in the Barco Law Building that students may use to log in to the class ZOOM while they are physically present in the building.

CLASS ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION

On attendance:

The American Bar Association and the University of Pittsburgh School of Law require regular and punctual class attendance (policy here).

The Law School’s formal attendance policy means that students must attend at least 80 percent of class meetings in order to receive course credit.  

Your camera must be ON during class. I have been generous in years past in permitting students to “attend” class with their cameras off. That generosity has been exhausted as class sizes have gotten smaller. If you are “present” in the ZOOM room but do not have your camera on, I may mark you as “absent.”

Attendance will be taken via the Top Hat app. The attendance code for each class session is generated that day by Top Hat (i.e., a new code for each class) and will be posted in that day’s chat session on ZOOM.

The formal policy is less important than this:

Students are expected to arrive for class on time, which means *before the announced start time for the class.*

Students have plenty to be concerned with, between law school generally, family, friends, health, and life, before wondering about the consequences of possibly missing class. The attendance policy will be administered liberally and generously. If students have concerns about that, please contact Professor Madison.

On participation:

Students are expected to read assignments in advance of the class meeting for which they are assigned. Students should be prepared to have something to say about the assigned material.

It is best for all if you ask questions during class (be curious!) and if you refer to specific points and ideas from the assigned materials when doing that.

ABOUT ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM

To help ensure a productive online classroom environment for everyone, students should follow these guidelines when using the ZOOM service for this class:

1. Health first. Log in and participate if you’re able. If you’re not healthy, let me know privately and/or or get in touch with one of the deans at Pitt Law.
2. Log in a little bit early if possible, before the official start time of the class, so that you’re ready to participate.
3. Log in with a real name for your screen name: preferred first name, then preferred last name. On your ZOOM image on your screen, clicking on the “three dots in the corner” settings icon should allow students to type in the preferred names.
4. If possible, set up your computer in a space that’s quiet and free of distractions and interruptions. Mute or turn off music and other video sources. It’s not always possible to find a completely quiet place, so students should do their best and we’ll all be a bit flexible.
5. Camera on. To reiterate: I have been generous in years past in permitting students to “attend” class with their cameras off. That generosity has been exhausted as class sizes have gotten smaller. If you are “present” in the ZOOM room but do not have your camera on, I may mark you as “absent.”
6. Microphone *off* by default. But know how to activate it when you want to or need to.
7. Use a headset or earbuds if you can, rather that your computer’s speakers.
8. In voice and in chat, be respectful of everyone else in the group.
9. Class sessions will not be recorded.

CLASS CANCELLATIONS AND MAKETUPS

If a class is cancelled for any reason, it will be made up via a newly-scheduled class session.  In rare cases, and only when absolutely necessary, you may be referred to a recording of an equivalent class session from a previous edition of this course.

ILLNESS

If you, a friend, or a family member experiences illness or caregiving responsibilities that require that you take time away from this course, please tell me, and please contact the Dean of Students (Alexandra (Allie) Linsenmeyer; alinsenm@pitt.edu) for assistance.

CHALLENGING CONVERSATIONS

To a significant degree trademark law is about the ethics and public policy of free expression in a market capitalist society, both today and historically. We will see over and over again conflicts over language and symbols that challenge our beliefs about distinctions between what is (appropriately) part of a competitive marketplace, (appropriately) part of civil discourse in a democratic society, and what is (inappropriately) hurtful and damaging.

As part of this class, you should expect to see, read, and perhaps hear argument, analysis, language, and imagery that causes offense, and that may be intended to cause offense (not by me, but by companies and/or by others in society at large). “Offense” runs a spectrum from the modestly offensive and pretty common “challenges prior assumptions and beliefs about the world” to the much more substantially offensive and (one hopes) rarer “approaches the edge of causing actual harm in the world.” I will make every effort not to put you in the position of confronting the latter without your choosing to do so.

Inevitably, however, lawyers are sometimes confronted with and, as part of representing clients of different sorts, have to understand and analyze material that may make them (the lawyers) uncomfortable. Law students, like lawyers and judges, need to develop techniques for discussing that material thoughtfully without perpetuating the harms or claims of harm that brought that material into the lawyers’ worlds in the first place. I will help students in this class do that. For more, see the “Inclusivity and diversity” section, below.

INCLUSIVITY AND DIVERSITY

This course, like all law school courses, is designed to be challenging. If there are aspects of this course that prevent you from learning or exclude you, please let me know as soon as possible. Together we’ll develop strategies to meet both your needs and the requirements of the course. I encourage to talk with me directly.

Pitt also has other support for you: the Office of Disability Resources and Services, the Writing Center, and the Counseling Center. For campus financial and food and health assistance, please see this list of resources from Pitt Libraries.

If you need official accommodations, you have a right to have these met; please see the section below on “Students with Disabilities.” If you would like less formal means of support in this course, please get in touch with me.

STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

[The formality of the following comes from the University of Pittsburgh and Pitt Law.]

It is the policy and practice of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania requirements regarding students and applicants with disabilities. Under these laws, no qualified individual with a disability shall be denied access to or participation in services, programs, and activities of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

Students who require accommodations because of a physical, learning or other disability must be evaluated by the University of Pittsburgh’s Office of Disability Resource Services (ODRS). The ODRS will document and verify the student’s status and make recommendations for appropriate accommodations to the Dean of Students.

If a student has a disability for which the student is or may be requesting accommodation, that student should contact both the office of the Dean of Students in the Law School (Dean Alexandra Linsenmeyer; alinsenm@pitt.edu) and the University Office of Disability Resources and Services (“DRS”), 140 William Pitt Union, Phone 412-648-7890, as early as possible in the semester. The DRS will verify the disability and determine reasonable accommodations for this course. The Dean of Students will oversee the implementation of accommodations.

Students should not discuss course assessment or exam accommodations with professors. The Dean of Students and the Registrar will insure that any testing accommodations are provided through the DRS.

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY

Students enrolling in this course are expected to comply with the University of Pittsburgh’s Student Code of Conduct, which may be accessed online here.

Students also are expected to comply with the University of Pittsburgh’s Guidelines on Academic Integrity and the School of Law’s Standards of Academic Integrity.

If my guidance or requirements for this course conflict with either the University’s Code of Conduct, Guidelines, or the School of Law’s Standards of Academic Integrity, my guidance or requirements take precedence,

CHATGPT AND GENERATIVE AI GENERALLY

New for 2026: I have produced a full page of guidelines and instructions for students with respect to Generative AI systems. This is my AI Policy, which applies to all of my courses.

You can find that page here.

CONTACTING PROFESSOR MADISON

Office hours?

I will not hold regular “drop in” in person office hours. Students are welcome to meet with me virtually, via ZOOM by appointment and in person by appointment.

One-to-one meetings

I will manage student appointments via the Calendly app. Click here to see my schedule (Monday afternoons) and to make a virtual appointment. Virtual meetings will take place via the same ZOOM link used for class sessions.

If you are not available during my usual meeting times, email me to find an agreeable alternative. Before doing that, please work hard to find a time within the range that I’ve cleared on my Calendly schedule.

I am not available on Fridays.

ADVICE ABOUT TALKING TO FACULTY MEMBERS

Like college students, law students are notorious for not using the most important resource of their school – the faculty – effectively.

What does “effectively” mean? Why meet with a professor at all, whether or not during “office hours”?

Maybe students have questions about exams (though that won’t happen in this class), or papers, grades, or class material; those are the usual reasons. But the more important reason, and the better and more effective use of time with faculty members, is simply to get to know them. And that time is also for the professor to get to know the student. What are your hopes and dreams? Anxieties and fears? Passions and talents?

Little of this will matter in the short run, and (to anticipate a common question) your professor (me) is rarely in a position to help a student get a particular job. Personal acquaintance can help professors write more persuasive recommendation letters, but recommendation letters are only the tips of the proverbial icebergs when it comes to benefits from personal relationships. Over the longer run, faculty friendships forged as students often pay enormous dividends in all sorts of unexpected ways.

I’ve certainly experienced that in my observations of former Pitt Law students. I can vouch for that from my own experience as a law student, decades ago. I owe much of my career as a law professor to the fact that I spent many hours during my third year of law school talking with one of my professors about professional soccer. That professor was, at the time, one of the most celebrated Constitutional law scholars in the world. I was writing a long research paper under his supervision. We also talked about the paper. But the soccer conversations stayed with me, and with him, and they paid off eventually in an extraordinary way. Ten years after I graduated from law school, I returned to him to ask for a recommendation in connection with applying for an academic job. He didn’t agree, because I never got the chance to ask. He volunteered to serve as a recommender even before I opened my mouth. His name, and his support, made a huge difference to my career. I got the job.

Soccer may not be your thing. What is? If I know, I’m much more likely to remember you in the years to come.

REQUIRED COURSE MATERIALS (ALSO: WHERE’S THE CASEBOOK?)

These is no casebook to buy.

All of the materials required for the course are available for free, online.

The majority of the readings are selections from an open source and open access, free-to-download-print-and-annotate-and-edit trademark law casebook created and edited by Professor Barton Beebe at New York University School of Law.  The title of the casebook is Trademark Law: An Open-Source Casebook.  This selections from the book that I use in this course blend portions of Version 13 (released in July 2026) and Version 12 (released in July 2025); substantively, the differences between the two amount largely to substitution of a handful of newer key cases for older ones. On the syllabus, material from this work is identified as “Beebe Text.”

Rather than simply assign pages from the book as if it were a traditional casebook, I have sliced and diced and in some places edited and re-arranged material from the book so that each class session comes with its own, discrete collection of digital files, in .docx and .pdf formats. Students may print, annotate, edit, and/or cut-and-paste all or parts of each file as they wish. Both my slicing and dicing and your annotating and editing are specifically permitted by the terms of the Creative Commons copyright license that Professor Beebe generously attached to the book. Thanks to him and to Creative Commons for permission to re-use and re-mix the work.

I present the material that way partly because I want to configure the readings in a way that suits my goals for the course. Also, I have acquired a strong distaste for the concept of the law school casebook. Like law school as a whole, casebooks not-so-subtly tend to present domains of “the law” as collections of distinct, coherent, stable packages of rules. There is “Contract” law, “Property” law, “Tax” law, and so forth, as if each of those subjects is complete, consistent, finished, and ready for digesting by new lawyers. Alas: in law as in life, the “rules” are overlapping, sometimes incoherent and inconsistent, and unstable. Becoming a lawyer means, partly, learning how to understand the incomplete, changing character of law and legal systems. That means learning how to put the pieces together yourself. So, I give you the pieces and something of an instruction manual. You assemble the package.

But it is not my way or the highway. You may prefer the book. You can find all of the assigned readings using the book’s table of contents. If you would like a copy of the complete book as a book, you can download it for free from Professor Beebe’s website. He also links to an Amazon.com page where you can buy a print copy for a modest fee. Neither I nor Professor Beebe earn any profit from sales of print copies.

In addition to sections from the Beebe text, the syllabus includes material described as “Boyle & Jenkins.” This consist of free-to-download-print-and-annotate material from the Open Intellectual Property Casebook produced by Professors James Boyle and Jennifer Jenkins at Duke Law School, and described in great detail here. The problems assigned on the syllabus likewise come from Boyle & Jenkins, with modifications by me. Thanks to them and to Creative Commons for permission to re-use and re-mix their work.

OPTIONAL TRADEMARK LAW MATERIALS

There is a vast secondary literature on trademark law. Here are some of the best sources:

• Mary LaFrance, Understanding Trademark Law (4th edition 2020) (a hornbook, and an excellent one-volume summary of trademark doctrine)
• J. Thomas McCarthy, McCarthy on Trademarks and Unfair Competition. This is the authoritative multi-volume treatise on trademark law. It is available on the Law Library shelves. It is also available online via the law library’s homepage. Contact a law librarian for assistance.
• The optional law review articles listed on the syllabus are available online both on the open Internet and also via Westlaw and Lexis/Nexis.
• Two excellent law professor blogs with up-to-date commentary on trademark law developments are Rebecca Tushnet’s 43(b)log (Professor Rebecca Tushnet, Harvard Law School) and the Technology and Marketing Law Blog (Professor Eric Goldman, Santa Clara University School of Law). A number of law firms and practitioners maintain trademark law blogs and newsletters that summarize recent legal developments. These tend to be easy to find via a Google Search. Among the best is this one, from Marty Schwimmer and this one from John Welch. This course will not address international trademark law in any detail, but the IPKat blog, covering international IP developments (including trademarks), is too good not to mention.
• Ed Timberlake, a lawyer and Certified Trademark Specialist, has assembled this impressive roster of marks at Pinterest.

SLIDES

This course will be largely slide-free. Slide decks from prior years’ versions of this course are posted where appropriate to the course syllabus.

GRADING

The grade for this course will be based on three short open writing assignments. The first two assignments will each be worth 30% of the final grade. The final assignment will be worth 40% of the final grade. The substance and format of the assignments, their timing, and their due dates will be discussed in class as the semester progresses.

WRITING ASSIGNMENT DUE DATES

The due dates for the required writing assignments are listed at the syllabus and readings (home page) as part of the list of assignments and readings.

For clarity, the dates are:

• Assignment 1:  Friday, October 2, 2026, at 3 pm.
• Assignment 2:  Friday, November 6, 2026 at 3 pm.
• Assignment 3:  Last day of exams (Wednesday, December 9, 2026), at 12 noon.

The official course policy on due dates is this:

There will be no extensions or exceptions to assignment deadlines. Do not be late with the assignments.

I am strict about deadlines for two reasons.

One, the assignments in this class move along at a steady clip. It’s important for practical reasons (my grading and commenting on student papers as a batch, most of all) that the papers for each assignment be turned in essentially at the same time. Any student who expects to encounter a problem with a given due date should contact me directly as soon as that problem develops. I will refer that student to the appropriate Dean at Pitt Law. The Deans have the power to be accommodating for students who, for one good faith (and presumably rare and necessarily extraordinary) reason or another, may struggle with that policy. In some rare cases, it is more important that students succeed than that they get the work in precisely on time.

Two, my expectations in this class largely mimic the expectations that junior lawyers face in full-time professional employment. Employers generally are unforgiving when it comes to timeliness. Judges are unforgiving when it comes to timeliness. And clients, above all, are unforgiving when it comes to timeliness. Getting in the habit of turning in your work when it is due (or earlier) will serve you well as you build a career.

WRITING ASSIGNMENT REQUIREMENTS

Each writing assignment will be based on a written problem distributed via the course website, at the Writing Assignments page. There will be an opportunity to discuss the problem in class and ask questions about it after it is distributed. Each problem will be based on the readings and classroom discussions.

The problems are designed so that they can be completed without independent research, but these will be open problems. There are no limits on the resources that students may bring to bear on their work.

Student work product must be typed or printed using a computer.

Each assignment has length and format limitations.

• For assignments calling for legal memoranda, and unless students are instructed otherwise, each memorandum must be formatted so that it is not longer than four [4] typewritten or printed pages, double-spaced, with 1″ minimum margins on all sides. No footnotes, endnotes, attachments, exhibits, or hyperlinks are permitted. (Images and other material may be embedded in the memoranda, so long as the work product in total does not exceed four pages.) The twelve [12] point proportional-width font known as Times New Roman must be used. Condensing or expanding the font is unacceptable.  
• For assignments calling for email summaries, and unless students are instructed otherwise, each email prepared as student work product must be not longer than two [2] typewritten or printed pages, single-spaced, with 1″ minimum margins on all sides. No footnotes, endnotes, attachments, exhibits, or hyperlinks are permitted. (Images and other material may be embedded in the memoranda, so long as the work product in total does not exceed four pages.) The twelve [12] point proportional-width font known as Times New Roman must be used. Condensing or expanding the font is unacceptable.
• For assignments calling for PowerPoint [or equivalent] slide decks, and unless students are instructed otherwise, each slide deck prepared as student work product must be not longer than 12 separate slides. [Note: From year to year and from course to course, I sometimes change the number of slides allowed. Be sure to follow the guidance for the most current version of the course.] Any font and font size may be used. No footnotes or slide notes are permitted. No images, animations, media files, or graphical or colored backgrounds or formats may be used other than matter that is (i) part of a professional-looking slide template and/or (ii) relevant to the matter being discussed in the slides.
• All references to authority must include full case names (abbreviated appropriately) and full statutory, case, or other citations. I do not care about Bluebook accuracy; the Bluebook is customary for law school and law review uses and for little else. (In law practice, briefs submitted to federal courts usually should comply with Bluebook rules; briefs submitted to state courts usually should comply with state court citation rules, which may differ from the Bluebook. In law practice, however, licensed lawyers rarely “Bluebook” citations themselves, even if they are accountable for the substantive accuracy of all citations.) I do care about citation completeness (volume, reporter, page, court, and year for first references; shortened case name, volume, reporter, and page for second and further references) and about consistency. Ensure that your citation format is complete (all necessary information is included) and that your format remains the same throughout your work.
• Students and only students are responsible for ensuring that their computer system/software platform generates work product that complies with these length and format limitations. I have only one means for determining whether your work meets my requirements, and that is looking at your work on my computer. If the work is out of compliance on my computer, then it is out of compliance.

Work product will be graded based on form, format, and writing quality as well as on content. The problems are designed so as not to have any single correct or even best solution. Each problem will present a range of issues that the student work should identify, analyze, and solve in a creative way.

As is customary for courses that are graded on the basis of students’ out of class work product rather than on the basis of final exams, the assignments will not be graded anonymously. Students should include their own names on the first page of their work product.

Work product should be turned in electronically directly to me (Professor Madison), via email. Your “paper” or slide deck should be sent as an attachment to your email message, not as a link to a cloud server and not embedded in the message.

Each assignment must be turned in no later than 3 pm on the day(s) that it is due or at such other date and time as may be directed in the instructions for a particular assignment.

Student work product that does not conform to the format instructions above, or that is turned in late, is subject to grade reduction. In extreme cases, it may be disregarded.

Do not fail to follow the format requirements. Do not turn in a paper that is too long, even by a word or by a line.

Sample questions are available via the Writing Assignments page.

GRADING BONUS FOR STUDENT COLLABORATION

Collaboration and teamwork are the essence of professional life. Why not learn how to do it effectively in law school?

Student collaboration and consultation in this course is permitted, even encouraged. The writing assignments are open. You may consult any resources you wish to, You may talk with other students in this class about the assignments and about your work. You may talk with people who are not currently enrolled in the class.

I do not require collaboration. But simply permitting it is rarely effective. Students are so used to working solo (and are required to work solo in most law school classes) that they often do not know how to get out of that habit.

To start to change that habit, I offer a carrot.

If you collaborate on your work with one or more others, then you have the option of writing and submitting a short (not to exceed one page, double-spaced) memo, one per assignment (meaning up to three, in total, over the course of the semester), that reflects on and assesses your collaboration experience. This optional memo should be turned in no later than the due date and time for the associated principal memo.

Each “reflection” memo should address:

• What did you find easy about collaborating?
• What did you find difficult about collaborating?
• What did you feel that you learned about yourself, as a person or as a future lawyer, as a result of the collaboration?
• What do you feel that you still have to learn about yourself, as a result of the collaboration?

The reflection memos will not be graded in themselves. At the end of the semester, students who turn in two or more reflection memos will be eligible to have their final grades raised by one-half grade, if the depth and quality of the reflections warrant an increase.

WHY RELY ON WRITING ASSIGNMENTS RATHER THAN END-OF-SEMESTER EXAMS

Writing assignments have been included in my Copyright Law and Trademark Law courses for more than 25 years, for two reasons.

First, the best way to learn something is to practice it, rather than to memorize it.  “Doing” Trademark Law is much more effective professional preparation than “studying” Trademark Law.

Second, writing is a practical skill that every lawyer needs to master. All beginning lawyers need as much writing practice as they can get. Your first-year Legal Analysis and Writing course may have been a useful introduction to “legal” writing. In the language of music, you have been shown some of the notes and chords that a proficient performer learns on the way to mastering their instrument. Truly making music – becoming a fluid legal writer – requires years’ worth of supervised instruction.

I took continuing education courses on legal writing, and benefitted from them, well into my career as a practicing lawyer. My CLE instructor, Gary Kinder, later founded WordRake, now part of BriefCatch. He also wrote a terrific book about sunken treasure that I remember for its vivid explanations of maritime law and practice.

EMAIL POLICY

Substantive questions about trademark law are welcome via email, at madison@pitt.edu. In general, questions will be answered during class, rather than via email, so that the entire class gets the benefit of the exchange.

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