Can Disclaimers of Affiliation Dispel Trademark Confusion? Evidence From Two Randomized Experiments

Legal scholars and courts have long viewed disclaimers of affiliation as an ineffective tool for dispelling trademark confusion. We revisit this debate with new evidence from two randomized experiments. Consistent with earlier research, we find that disclaimers alone do not dispel consumer confusion. Our experiments show, however, that simply requiring consumers to register their recognition of a disclaimer can reduce confusion to levels that most courts would consider negligible. We tested two disclaimer acknowledgment tasks in an online shopping context: a burdensome task in which participants were required to retype the text of the disclaimer before they could continue with the study and a much simpler task in which participants were required to click a box affirming that they read and understood the disclaimer in order to continue. The tasks were similarly effective in lowering the probability of confusion to levels below the threshold that would typically trigger a finding of likelihood of confusion.