Book Launch: Trademarks and Free Speech
Join us to celebrate the launch of “Trademarks and Free Speech: Conflicts and Resolutions,” the new book by University of San Diego School of Law Professor Lisa P. Ramsey. The evening will feature a thought-provoking panel discussion exploring the book’s central themes and their implications for trademark law and practice. A celebratory reception will follow, with books available for purchase that can be signed.
The panel will include the Honorable M. Margaret McKeown, Senior Circuit Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Jurist in Residence at USD School of Law, and DLA Piper partner Melissa Reinckens, a Chambers ranked lead trial lawyer who teaches Trademark Litigation at USD School of Law as an Adjunct Professor.
DATE AND TIME
Monday, February 23, 2026
6:00 - 6:45 p.m. – Discussion and Q & A
6:45 - 8:00 p.m. – Celebratory Reception & Book Signing - Copies will be available for purchase
LOCATION
Warren Hall: Grace Courtroom / Faculty Reading Room
REGISTRATION
This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Please Register Here.
MCLE CREDIT
USD School of Law is a State Bar of California approved provider of MCLE. This event has been approved for 45 minutes of general credit.
ABOUT THE BOOK
This book explores how trademark laws can conflict with the right to freedom of expression and proposes a framework for evaluating free speech challenges to trademark registration and enforcement laws. It also explains why granting trademark rights in informational terms, political messages, widely used phrases, decorative product features, and other language and designs with substantial pre-existing communicative value can harm free expression and fair competition. Lisa P. Ramsey encourages governments to not register or protect broad trademark rights in these types of inherently valuable expression. She also recommends that trademark statutes explicitly allow certain informational, expressive, and decorative fair uses of another's trademark, and proposes other speech-protective and pro-competitive reforms of trademark law for consideration by legislatures, courts, and trademark offices in the United States, Europe, and other countries.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Lisa P. Ramsey is a Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law, where she teaches and writes in the intellectual property law area. She is an expert on trademark law and has given presentations on this topic to attorneys, professors, and students throughout the United States and around the world. Professor Ramsey’s scholarship focuses on potential conflicts between trademark laws and free speech rights, and explains how trademark protection of certain inherently valuable words, symbols, and product features can harm fair competition and freedom of expression. In 2024, she testified at a hearing held by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's Intellectual Property Subcommittee about the First Amendment implications of a proposed anti-impersonation law targeted at unauthorized digital replicas called the No FAKES Act. She has also talked about free speech limits on trademark rights on panels at San Diego Comic-Con in 2023 and 2024.
Professor Ramsey is an active member of the American Intellectual Property Law Association and worked on the subcommittee that updated the International Trademark Association’s Model Trademark Law Guidelines in 2019. Before joining the USD Law faculty in 2004, she was an intellectual property litigator at Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich and a judicial law clerk for the Honorable Rebecca Beach Smith in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. In July 2025, she was named a Women of Influence in Law 2025 Honoree by the San Diego Business Journal. Information about her publications is available on her website at www.lisapramsey.com.