The book focuses on the legal strategy and monitoring of merchandising campaigns of a cross border nature in 17 European countries. Drawing on the local expertise of contributing authors from each country, Character Merchandising in Europe presents a detailed comparative analysis of the manifold legal issues related to merchandising practices. These include the following: the inadequacy of trade mark licenses to encompass the 'affinity' motive of the purchaser of merchandising; the overlapping rights of a manufacturer and a merchandiser in the same product; deficiencies in unfair competition law concerning merchandising; the question of whether merchandising symbols could be registered in a manner analogous to (but distinct from) trade marks; the question of whether copyright law may be extended to protect the merchandising use of a copyrighted or copyrightable element; the ownership of merchandising rights; and the question of whether a merchandising right can persist after the
