Trade marks, newspapers and reading publics

ABSTRACT How did the nineteenth-century trade marks registration system with its preference for distinctive trade marks accommodate Britain’s newspapers and reading publics, who seemed able to distinguish between newspapers despite their common descriptive names? In this article, it is argued that the situation presents another example of intellectual property law’s ‘negative spaces’, of creativity and innovation thriving in the absence of significant formal protection from intellectual property law. Moreover, it shows, yet again, the place of informal control in what is in other respects a formalised media industry sector. The historical analysis helps to explain the recent decision of an Irish judge that The Times and The Irish Times should continue to ‘co-exist peacefully’ in Ireland, with The Times permitted to launch a digital Times (Irish Edition) over the objection of the similarly named Irish Times, its nineteenth-century counterpart.