Skip to content
People  •  Music  •  Professor of Law and Media

Alexandra Roberts

Professor Roberts holds a joint appointment with the School of Law at Northeastern University. She is a leading authority on intellectual property and social media. Her research focuses on federal trademark and false advertising law, particularly in cyberspace. She has written on influencer marketing, trademark use on social media, hashtags as trademarks, and trademark law’s failure to function doctrine. She also writes on law and literature.

Professor Roberts joined Northeastern in 2022 from the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law (UNH Law). She previously served as executive director of the Franklin Pierce Center for Intellectual Property. She also served as a visiting assistant professor at Boston University School of Law and as an associate with Ropes & Gray.

She holds a JD from the Yale Law School, an AM from Stanford University, and an AB from Dartmouth College.

Research/Publications Highlights

  • “A Poetics of Trademark Law,” Berkeley Technology Law Review (forthcoming 2023).
  • “Cybermarks” in Feminist Cyberlaw (chapter forthcoming 2023).
  • “Mark Talk,” 39 Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal 1001 (2021), symposium issue “Diamond Anniversary: 75 years of the Lanham Act” (with transcript of symposium remarks).
  • “False Influencing,” 109 Georgetown Law Review 81 (2020).
  • “Trademark Failure to Function,” 103 Iowa Law Review 1977 (2019).
  • “Athlete Trademarks: Names, Nicknames, & Catchphrases,” in The Oxford Handbook of American Sports Law (Oxford University Press, 2018).
  • “Tagmarks,” 105 California Law Review 599 (2017).
  • “How to Do Things with Word Marks: A Speech-Act Theory of Distinctiveness,” 65 Alabama Law Review 1035 (2014).
  • “Goodwill U: School Name Change & Trademark Law,” 4 IP Theory 129 (2013).
  • “Constructing a Canon of Law-Related Poetry,” David Kader and Michael Stanford eds., Poetry of the Law: From Chaucer to the Present, ” 90 Texas Law Review 1507 (2012).

Departments

Music

Education

  • J.D., The Yale Law School
  • A.M., Stanford University
  • A.B., Dartmouth College

In the News

Can you call it a 'dupe'?

From furniture to skincare, "dupes" abound. These alternatives are usually cheaper than the original products -- but these marketing claims can land sellers in legal hot water.

November 26, 2024

Music

When lifetime subscriptions don't last a lifetime

Alexandra Roberts, professor of law and media, spoke to Slate about Rolling Stone's lifetime subscription to its print publication, which its parent company has changed to a digital subscription.

June 3, 2024