I think you're essentially describing Trademark by another name. In the case of Coke there is a distinct styling and branding they use (red cursive lettering b

I think you're essentially describing Trademark by another name. In the case of Coke there is a distinct styling and branding they use (red cursive lettering being a big component) as part of the brand they use to represent their company name. There are bound to be a whole bunch of edge cases here and so creating a registry process for trademarks to remove any danger from being an accidental look-alike actually ends up protecting small businesses. Those rights being saleable and licensable honestly just strikes me as common sense because CocaCola might want to empower regional bottling plants to produce their product without putting those bottling plant subsidiaries in the awkward position where they refuse to operate because at any moment CocaCola could step in and essentially seize their entire business since, contractually, there is no method to allow CocaCola to lease out the rights to make such styled bottles removing the protection from bottling plants. Lastly, CocaCola as a brand definitely has a large value to the company - so if that brand is not saleable how are you going to quantify that value and allow a transferrence of the value of it between different shareholders, holding companies, or company owners/executives. I also think you're oversimplifying damages - CocaCola could suffer a reputation loss due to CocoCola including arsenic in their product and causing public confusion. I think these portions of the law are pretty complicated - yes - but they're that way because it's a complicated subject.