Trademarks have come a long way, from a simple mark left by
an ancient artist through the centuries to a knockdown, drag-out
fight between Iceland, the frozen food company, and Iceland, the
literal country.
Those early craftspeople could not have predicted just how far
trademarks would come, or just how many of them the average human
would one day be capable of filing away inside a single
media-saturated brain. It has been a long and interesting road,
though, so let us wander backward along with it for a bit and
marvel at how trademarks have transformed and evolved.
In the beginning
Humans have been trademarking stuff since before there was even
a word for it. Two thousand years ago, Roman craftspeople left their
distinctive marks on pretty much everything they made —
tableware, brickwork and roof tiles, decorative vases, gravestones,
lead slingshot ammunition, and even plumbing. Those early
trademarks had no real legal clout, though. They were mostly just
