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19 J. Contemp. Legal Issues 22 (2010)
The Origins of the Lanham Act

handle is hein.journals/contli19 and id is 32 raw text is: The Origins of the Lanham Act SONDRA LEVINE (2004) More than eight years of effort to rewrite and modernize the basic law of trade- marks was brought to a successful conclusion on July 5, 1946 when President Truman signed the new Trade-Mark Bill. As Public Law 489 79th Congress, it will become effective one year after enactment.1 From our comfortable Twenty-First Century perch, we assume the Lanham Act, the United States' basic federal trademark statute, has been around forever. In fact, passage of the Lanham Act in 1946 was greeted with unprecedented fanfare by the business community as the culmination of more than seventy years of congressional forays into trademark territory.2 The Trademark Act of 1870,3 Congress' first essay on the topic, attempted a comprehensive national registration statute. The 1870 Act was soon 1. Bulletin, New Trade-Mark Legislation, 29 J. Patent Office Society 618 (1946). This issue of the JPOS contains a copy of the original version of the Act, see 29 J. Patent Office Society at 635-61, and an apparently complete bibliography of its legislative history, see E.A. Norwig, The New Trade-Mark Law: Bibliography of Congressional Documents, 29 J. Patent Office Society at 619-21. See also Rudolf Callmann, The New Trade-Mark Act of July 5, 1946, 37 Trade-Mark Rep. 3 (1947) (noting the Act's unduly prolonged gestation). 2. In July 1947 the Commissioner of Trademarks opened a speech before the Commerce and Industry Association of New York by observing: It may be somewhat bold for anyone to venture upon a discussion of the Trade-Mark Act of 1946, popularly known as the Lanham Act, as probably more has been written about the law of trade- marks since and because of the passage of this Act a year ago than has been written on that subject since the beginning of the law of trade-marks. Casper W. Ooms, How the Lanham Act Affects Trade-Marks, 37 Trade-Mark Rep. 383 (1947). 3. An Act to revise, consolidate, and amend the statutes relating to patents and copyrights, 16 Stat. 198 (1870).