The article explores current trends in the development of legal protection for trademarks in the context of the digital transformation of commerce and consumer relations, as well as the changing role of trademarks – from the “pre-supermarket” era of personal sales, through the period of dominance of trademarks in mass retail trade, to the modern era of digital platforms and artificial intelligence, where algorithms effectively take on the role of intermediary between the manufacturer and the consumer.

The purpose of the article is to highlight and analyze trends in the legal protection of trademarks, taking into account the widespread use of digital technologies in trade, and to outline future prospects for their legal protection under new conditions.

Particular attention in the study is paid to the changing behavior of consumers, who increasingly rely less on remembered commercial signs and instead depend on automated recommendation systems and digital product descriptions. The classical theory of consumer “search costs” is gradually losing its relevance, as the process of choosing a product is increasingly carried out without the participation of the trademark itself as an identifier of the manufacturer. This, in turn, calls into question the exclusive role of the trademark as the primary means of communication between theproducer and the consumer. Special attention is also given to the legal implications of the spread of 3D printing and blockchain technologies, which pose new challenges to the traditional understanding of the trademark as a designation of a physical product. The article also examines the introduction of Digital Product Passports, which ensure the unique identification of goods through QR codes or other data carriers.

In conclusion, it is emphasized that the digitalization of the market leads to the transformation of the very nature of trademarks. The application of digital technologies has revealed several trends in their use, directly affecting their functions as objects of intellectual property law: 1) the widespread expansion of e-commerce, enabling online purchases based on artificial intelligence algorithms that analyze consumer interests, select suitable products, and provide relevant information; 2) the use of digital technologies not only in remote online purchases but also directly during consumers’ physical visits to retail outlets, through markings placed by manufacturers on products that consumers can activate with smartphones to obtain comprehensive purchasing information; 3) the application of blockchain technologies and the creation of blockchain-based product registries that display information not only about product composition but also about subsequent transactions and territorial movement. This development requires rethinking the role of trademarks as the sole and universal legal mechanism for regulating sales, as trademark rights holders now have to substantiate the grounds for prohibiting trademark use as an exception to the principle of exhaustion of intellectual property rights.

Bibliography

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