Oddbean new post about login | logout i'm not sure that the history of trademarks goes back as far as copyright either... i'm pretty sure that it emerged in the days of the middle american century over the use of brands on cattle, and people trying to sell their sub-par cows as some highly regarded rancher's cows
I'd bet it starts earlier, in the guilds in Europe. Idk, but I've listened to a few lectures about those guilds and how they were writing laws both for their cities and inside their guild, and their use of ciphers to encode their messages. This goes back to at least the 12th century