Alexandra Roberts

Simply adding your name to a ballot is unlikely to meet the legal definition of commercial use or trademark infringement, says Alexandra J. Roberts, a professor of law and media at Northeastern University School of Law.

Alexandra Roberts, faculty director for Northeastern University’s School of Law’s Center for Law, Information & Creativity, noted that Patagonia is not seeking to get Pattie Gonia to relinquish her stage name, but “only to avoid any commercial use of her name that creates a likelihood of confusion or dilution.”

Alexandra Roberts, a professor of law and media at Northeastern University, said there are few examples of the Lanham Act being used to hold influencers accountable for what they post and say online.

But that might not matter either, according to Alexandra Roberts, a trademark expert and professor of law and media at Northeastern University School of Law.

This could include fonts, logos and the size of Trump’s name on the front of the airport, said Roberts, a Northeastern University law professor.

Alexandra Roberts, a professor of law and media at Northeastern University in Boston, said that brand names — called marks, in legalese — have to fulfill certain criteria in order to be deemed explicitly distinctive, rather than descriptive, by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. 

Alexandra Roberts, a professor of law and media at Northeastern University School of Law, tells The Verge that Operation Bluebird has a “solid argument” that X has abandoned the rights to the Twitter marks. 

It’s an issue that, with the proliferation of social media, legal professionals are seeing “more often than we’d like,” said Alexandra Roberts, a professor of law and media at Northeastern University. 

Dupes exist on a continuum from mere inspiration to outright counterfeiting, says Alexandra Roberts, a professor of law and media at Northeastern University. 

“Those are essentially infringement claims. They’re less about false advertising and more about whether these products violate Lululemon’s rights,” says Alexandra Roberts, a professor of law and media at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, Mass.