A LINGUISTIC STUDY OF THE DISTINCTIVENESS OF A TRADEMARK

This article investigates the distinctiveness of a trademark from the perspective of linguistics. Recently, the high-profile case of the trademark 'MISS WU' sparked a chorus of disapproval among the public. Claiming that the mark is too generic since 'Wu' is a fairly common surname in Taiwan and cannot be exclusively associated with the designer Jason Wu, the Intellectual Property Court (IP court) rejected the trademark registration. Given the surprising furor over the rejection of a trademark, it is clear that the general population does not fully understand the official meaning of a trademark. Since linguistics is an ideal approach when examining the merits of an application to register a trademark, we will employ a mixture of linguistic approaches, including phonetics, corpus linguistics, and semiotics, to analyze whether or not 'MISS WU' is distinctive. The history, categories, distinctiveness and regulations related to trademarks are introduced to clarify the picture of trademarks.