A Rose By Any Other Name: Trademarks and Pricing

An article titled “What’s in a name? A premium price, perhaps,” published in the Duke Law School newsletter highlights new research from trademark scholars that puts a hard value on something many of us only consider in the abstract: the price premium created by a distinctive name. The piece summarizes the research showing that products bearing distinctive trademarks command higher prices.

Traditionally, trademark law is thought of as a tool to prevent consumer confusion and ensure consumers can be confident of the source of the product they are purchasing. Marketers and trademark attorneys frequently point to the value of strong brands and their ability to support premium pricing. But isolating the economic value of a distinctive name, as opposed to the broader goodwill of an established brand, has proven far more difficult. Duke professor Christopher Buccafusco and his co-authors Jonathan S. Masur and Ryan Whalen identified a rare setting in which that question could be examined more rigorously.

The researchers exploited a unique data set in which many of the more than 5,000 Bordeaux wineries operate under names that predate modern trademark law. Some estates share very similar names because of inheritance practices in France centuries ago — for example, Château Léoville was split into Château Léoville Poyferré, Château Léoville-Las Cases, and Château Léoville Barton.

In such a crowded naming landscape (sometimes called the “wall of confusion” where so many bottles on a shelf seem indistinguishable), you might expect that distinctive trademarks mostly help high-end producers. After all, buyers of fine wine likely pay more attention to nuance.

United States trademark law itself considers price and reflects this idea that consumers are more careful when considering expensive goods. In the analysis for the likelihood of confusion between marks, one of the factors common to the seminal cases focuses on consumer care (i.e., where consumers are more careful, they are less likely to confuse similar marks). The factor recognizes that consumers may be less careful with less expensive purchases, paying less attention to the trademarks. This could imply that less careful consumers should similarly be less likely to note a distinctive trademark, and so such marks would be less likely to affect the price of cheaper products.

Yet the opposite argument is also plausible. If consumers devote less time to evaluating low-priced goods, they may rely more heavily on shortcuts. A distinctive, memorable name can serve as that shortcut. Rather than diminishing the role of branding, lower consumer scrutiny may increase the importance of easily spotted cues. In that sense, distinctiveness might matter just as much, or even more, at the lower end of the market.

Either way, the evidence adds nuance. Using a dataset of 5,775 wines from 2,324 producers sold between 2010 and 2021, the authors measured each name’s distinctiveness relative to the ten most similar names in the market and looked at how it correlated with price. To their surprise, they found that “brand distinctiveness adds a significant price premium at all segments of the Bordeaux market: low-, mid- and high-quality wines.”

In fact, uncommonly named wines with high ratings sold for 198% more than commonly named peers. But even low-rated wines with unique names sold for 185% more than commonly named ones of similar quality.  As Buccafusco put it, “If you’re selling $1,000 Bordeaux, it’s great to have a unique name. If you’re selling $10 Bordeaux, it’s great to have a unique name.”

These findings suggest trademarks (and their legal protection) influence pricing. When names are legally protected from excessive similarity, consumers can distinguish between products, and producers can extract real value from investing in reputation. As the authors note, “Trademark law is doing a good thing…it’s good for consumers, and it’s good for brands as well.”

And for everyday wine lovers navigating that “wall of confusion,” the research hints that the answer to the question of what’s in a name is, at least potentially, profit.

Read the full article (which links to their underlying paper): Buccafusco, Masur, and Whalen, “What’s in a name? A premium price, perhaps,” Duke Law School News (January 29, 2026).