In recent years, trademark scholars have come to recognize that the supply of words, sounds, and symbols available to designate new goods and services is an exhaustible resource. In certain sectors, the most common English words and syllables and the most common U.S. surnames are almost all claimed as marks. Some firms have responded by resorting to ever-more-unusual brand names so as to avoid trademark disputes. Scholars have proposed solutions ranging from raising registration fees to narrowing the scope of trademark rights. In this Article, we frame trademark law’s governance of “linguistic space” as a balancing act between what we term proximity costs and distance costs. Proximity costs, the conventional focus of trademark doctrine, occur when different firms use marks that are close in linguistic space—think Zantac (for heartburn) versus Xanax (for anxiety). Distance costs arise when firms use marks that are difficult to remember because of their length or their far remove from the core of semantic signifiers familiar to most consumers—staying in the medicine cabinet, think Valsartan (for high blood pressure) or Namzaric (for memory loss). Although conceptually different, proximity costs and distance costs both create similar practical problems. Both make it more difficult for consumers to purchase and communicate about brands, and both make it harder for new entrants to establish and defend their market share. Our proximity-distance framing has conceptual payoffs for trademark law. We explain why responses to the crowding of linguistic space internal to trademark law cannot escape some tradeoff between proximity costs and distance costs. Allowing mark holders to control a larger swath of linguistic space reduces proximity costs, but at the expense of pushing other firms to the periphery of linguistic space, increasing distance costs. Similarly, weakening trademark protection to allow more firms to locate their marks in the linguistic core reduces distance costs, but with some increase in proximity costs. Our framing thus shows how the policy problems of trademark law parallel the challenges of managing scarcity in real property. As we draw inspiration from solutions to urban congestion and sprawl, we suggest how nontrademark interventions can lead to more efficient use of linguistic space, promoting product identification without raising proximity or distance costs. Our approach thus points to the possibility of using a plurality of legal and policy tools to address the proximity-distance dilemma at trademark law’s heart. And by relieving some of the pressure on trademark law to resolve the proximity-distance dilemma on its own, our approach frees trademark law to pursue a wider range of goals and to vindicate a broader variety of values.

近年来，商标学者开始认识到可用于指定新商品和服务的文字、声音和符号的供应是一种耗竭的资源。在某些领域，最常见的英语单词和音节以及最常见的美国姓氏几乎都被称为商标。一些公司的回应是诉诸于越来越不寻常的品牌名称，以避免商标纠纷。学者们提出了从提高注册费到缩小商标权范围的解决方案。在本文中，我们将商标法对“语言空间”的管理视为我们所说的邻近成本和距离成本之间的平衡行为。邻近成本，商标学说的传统焦点，当不同的公司使用语言空间接近的标记时，就会发生这种情况——想想 Zantac（用于胃灼热）与 Xanax（用于焦虑）。当公司使用难以记住的标记时，距离成本就会增加，因为它们的长度或它们远离大多数消费者熟悉的语义能指的核心——留在药柜里，想想缬沙坦（用于高血压）或 Namzaric（用于记忆）损失）。尽管概念上不同，但邻近成本和距离成本都会产生类似的实际问题。两者都使消费者更难购买和交流品牌，也使新进入者更难建立和捍卫自己的市场份额。我们的近距框架具有商标法的概念收益。我们解释了为什么对商标法内部语言空间拥挤的反应无法摆脱邻近成本和距离成本之间的某种权衡。允许商标持有者控制更大范围的语言空间可以降低邻近成本，但代价是将其他公司推向语言空间的外围，增加了距离成本。同样，削弱商标保护以允许更多公司将其商标定位在语言核心会降低距离成本，但会增加邻近成本。因此，我们的框架显示了商标法的政策问题如何与管理房地产稀缺性的挑战并行。当我们从城市拥堵和蔓延的解决方案中汲取灵感时，我们建议非商标干预如何能够更有效地利用语言空间，在不增加邻近或距离成本的情况下促进产品识别。因此，我们的方法指出了使用多种法律和政策工具来解决商标法核心的邻近距离困境的可能性。通过减轻商标法自身解决邻近距离困境的一些压力，我们的方法使商标法能够自由地追求更广泛的目标并维护更广泛的价值观。