This Article offers a trademark-framed reappraisal of a pair of
extraordinary enforcement actions brought by the Northern Renaissance
artist Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) against copyists of his work. These
cases have long been debated by art, cultural, and copyright historians
insofar as they appear to reject Dürer’s demand for protocopyright
protection. Commentators have also contested the historicity of one of the
two narratives. But surprisingly little attention has been paid by
trademark scholars to the companion holdings—in the same texts—that
affirm Dürer’s right to prevent the use of his monogram on unauthorized
reproductions.
This Article seeks to fill that gap by analyzing Dürer’s cases
through the lens of twenty-first-century trademark theory. It argues that,
properly contextualized and understood, the cases provide remarkable
and early accounts of two tribunals giving prototrademark relief to a
famous artist and his brand. They mark a critical moment in trademark
history even if portions of the underlying narratives are unreliable. More
broadly, they invite us to reconceptualize the role of artists and aesthetics
as a concealed but core aspect of trademark law’s otherwise commercial
and industrial legal history.
