The Trade Dress Institution: Looking Again to Trademark System

The overall appearance of a product or service, in addition to creating beauty and attractiveness, can act as a source identifier to help consumers distinguishing source. In other words, most of the time, buyers recognize the origin of the products or services and choose their desired products, based on their appearance or so-called trade dress. Therefore, when the overall appearance of a product or service is designed in a way that can serve as a source identifier, it deserves to be protected. Having in mind the lack of research in this field, the present article attempts to answer questions relating to the position of trade dress in trademark laws of countries and its protection in Iran. Adopting an analytical-descriptive approach, the article concludes that despite regulations and judicial precedents of different legal systems which protect trade dress, product design or packaging will not be accepted as a trademark in Iran. Thus, this article tries to introduce trade dress and study its related rules comparatively.