Opening up the Australian archives on colonial trade mark registrations

摘要

Nothwithstanding the depth of what can be drawn from trade mark registration data, historical trade mark registrations have largely been the subject of neglect. Some work, however, has recently emerged internationally that considers historical trade mark registrations. Even so, no such work has yet emerged in Australia. This article seeks to fill this spaceby reviewing a sample of the colonial trade mark registers sourced from the National Archives of Australia. The purpose is to identify trends and key themes emerging during this defining period in Australia's trade mark history. Thus, after first providing an overview of the trade marks registered under the regime and subject to review, this article looks specifically at the colonial trade mark registration data and explores themes of trade mark intensity, the globalisation of marking and the pattern of trade marking image based marks, before concluding with some more general observations.