Luminita Olteanu

Associate Professor

Deputy Director of Student Opportunities (AI)

Intellectual Property Law; Trade Mark Law; Advertising Law; Interdisciplinary Approaches to Intellectual Property Law

School of Law
S2.06, Social Sciences Building
University of Warwick
Coventry CV4 7AL
United Kingdom

024 765 74553

Scholarship

My research interests lie at the intersection of law and society, with a particular focus on the connections between legal norms, technology, consumer behaviour, and brand dynamics. My ongoing research projects examine the initiatives behind trade mark dilution litigation, the influence of commercial messages on body image dissatisfaction, and explore moral justifications for judicial decisions in cases involving junior brands emulating established ones

Bio

Luminita joined Warwick Law School as Assistant Professor in 2023 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2026. Previously, she was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow (2022-2023) at LSE Law School. She obtained her PhD from UCL Laws for the thesis 'Rethinking Trade Mark Reputation and Its Susceptibility to Dilutive Harms' for which she was awarded the prestigious PhD Scholarship from the Institute of Brand and Innovation Law. Prior to joining academia, she practised law at various international law firms, specialising in intellectual property law disputes, data privacy matters and commercial law. In 2021, Luminita was awarded Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy.

Education

Research Fellow, LSE Law School

PhD, Law, UCL Laws, London, UK

LLM, University of Kent Law School

LLB, University of Bucharest Law School

Teaching

Luminita is the module convenor for LA3C7 Intellectual Property: Copyright and trade marks and LA3H6 Trade Marks in Context: Branding, Law & Regulation. Prior to joining Warwick Law School, Luminita has taught intellectual property law at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels at LSE Law School, UCL Laws and Kent Law School. As evidence of her teaching excellence, Luminita was included on the UCL Student Choice Awards 2022 Roll of Honour for Exceptional Feedback.

Languages

English, Romanian (main languages); Spanish (intermediate), French (intermediate).

Publications

Olteanu. L, “Profitable Insecurities: Trade Mark Law, Misleading Advertising and Body Image Perceptions in the UK” (2025) Journal of Law and Society Volume 52, Issue 4, December 2025, Pages 705-729 https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.70025 (refereed journal)
Olteanu. L, “Bad Faith: Investigating Overbroad Trade Mark Registrations”, Intellectual Property Quarterly (refereed journal) (2023) Issue 2, pp. 274-295
Olteanu. L, “European Dilution: Mapping the Origin and Roles of the Reputation Requirement”, (2022) UCL Journal of Law and Jurisprudence (refereed journal), Volume 11, Issue 1, pages 32-63
Olteanu. L, “The ‘trade-mark-law-and-innovation’ trap: why it would be wise to conceptualize innovation outside the realms of dilution protection”, (2022) Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (refereed journal), Volume 17(8), pages 659–673
Olteanu. L, “Riding on the Coat-tails of Traditional Cultural Expressions”, (2021) The International Journal for the Semiotics of Law (refereed journal), Volume 34, pages 861–891
Olteanu. L, “Rebranding strategies and their boomerang effect - The curious case of Burberry” The Journal of World Intellectual Property (refereed journal), (2020) Volume 23, Issue 5-6, pages 777-797

See more here: https://profiles.warwick.ac.uk/u2272314-luminita-olteanu/publications

Teaching Projects

Highlighted

I am currently leading an interdisciplinary project examining how trade mark law interacts with consumer protection in the context of environmental claims, in collaboration with Dr Tim Mullett (Warwick Business School).

The research to date includes a chapter examining the doctrinal disconnect between trade mark registration criteria and consumer law substantiation requirements, to be published in Ilanah Fhima and Anke Moerland (eds), Research Agendas in Trade Mark Law (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2026). The project has also generated significant academic engagement. I have presented this work at the UCL Institute of Brand and Innovation Law Annual Brand Seminar (May 2026) and at the Oxford Intellectual Property Discussion Group (February 2026).

The next stage of the project will deliver a representative UK population consumer experiment designed to test how consumers respond to green trade marks and certification marks.

Impact

Trade Mark Law, Consumer Protection, and the Green Transition
Intellectual Property Discussion Group, University of Oxford
20 May 2026

Trade Marks and the Green Economy
Annual Brand Seminar, UCL Institute of Brand and Innovation Law
May 2026
Recording available here

Seeing Trade Mark Reputation With Fresh Eyes: Lessons From Consumer Based Brand Equity Models
CIPIL Evening Seminar, Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge
10 November 2022
Recording available here

Media & Blogs

My research on branding and politics was featured in an interview that informed Gemma Bradley’s article ‘Dog whistling’: the legal limits when political parties appropriate marks without permission', published in the World Trademark Review on 10 October 2025 (https://www.worldtrademarkreview.com/article/dog-whistling-the-legal-limits-when-political-parties-appropriate-marks-without-permission)

I expanded on my motivations and concerns around body image dissatisfaction in a blog post for the Journal of Law and Society(published on 26 November 2025), where I reflected on the troubling intersections between trade mark law, advertising practices, and body image perceptions that I addressed in detail in my article Profitable insecurities: trade mark law, misleading advertising, and body image perceptions in the United Kingdom(Vol 52, Issue 4, 2025 available Open Access). The blog post is available here: https://journaloflawandsociety.co.uk/blog/profitable-insecurities-trade-mark-law-misleading-advertising-and-body-image-perceptions-in-the-united-kingdom/

Research Supervision

I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD supervisees. However, please ensure that you have a research proposal which corresponds with the University of Warwick School of Law requirements.

I particularly welcome expressions of interest from prospective PhD candidates in the field of trade marks and brands. Specifically, I am eager to supervise topics with an empirical or interdisciplinary focus, including how technology influences the evolving dynamics of consumption and meaning production, the social implications of advertising and the political economy of branding.

In addition, I am open to discussing research supervision on the history and political economy of technologies that shaped the field of Intellectual Property Law.