Certified Repairable: Using Trade Marks to Distinguish, Signal and Encourage Repair

摘要

In today's throwaway world, a right to repair is increasingly important for environmental sustainability. As important as a legal right to repair - be that via patent, copyright or design - is the provision of information about the repairability of goods and a willingness and desire to repair the goods that we purchase. In this article we examine the way in which trade marks (and the sections on "authorised use" and "control" in the Trade Marks Act 1995 (Cth)) can be used to distinguish goods that are repairable and, in doing so, inform consumers that goods are repairable. Like the Health and Energy Star Ratings, Fairtrade and Forest Stewardship Council, a repairable trade mark can be distinctive and used to provide information, set standards and act as a simplifying heuristic to help consumers make a judgment and decision about which companies are repair friendly and which goods are repairable. In this way, the use of a repairable trade mark can play a crucial role in encouraging repair - creating a relational discourse in which intellectual property law, qua trade marks, help replace uncertainty and lack of knowledge with distinctiveness and an ability and desire to repair.