Journal of Intellectual Property Rights

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Registration of Works belonging to the Public Domain as Trademarks


Affiliations
1 Department of Human Rights and Intellectual Property Law, University of Gdańsk, ul. Bażyńskiego 6, 80-980 Gdańsk, Poland
 

The article addresses the issue of the increasingly frequent registration of public domain works as trademarks, points out the practical implications of such registrations, and acknowledges the conflicting decisions with respect to the same form of trade mark applied for, depending on whether it is the decision of the patent offices of the EU member states (or other than the EU regional systems) or the EU Intellectual Property Office. The analyzed topic should be considered in the context of the depletion of the public domain, the restriction of the freedom to use cultural goods, as well as the threat to the institution of the trademark itself. Thus, the admissibility of this type of registration should be carefully considered each time, taking into account the role played by the public domain, the motivation of the entity applying for such a trademark and a noticeable conflict of two systems: Copyright and Industrial Property Law.

Keywords

Copyright, Cultural Heritage, Intellectual Property System, Public Domain, Trademark
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  • The Nice Classification is the International Classification of Goods and Services intended for the registration of TMs, approved pursuant to the Nice Agreement on 15 June 1957. It is used not only by signatories to the Nice Agreement, but also by countries participating in the Madrid Agreement concerning the international registration of marks and in the Protocol to the Madrid Agreement and member states of the African Intellectual Property Organisation (OAPI), member states of the African Regional Intellectual Property Organisation (ARIPO), the Benelux Bureau for TMs (BBM) and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (UIPO).

  • The Polish Act on Copyright and Related Rights of 4 February 1994 contains Article 13(7), according to which the dissemination of all works that are exhibited permanently in indicated publicly available places. This refers both to private and commercial use. In practice, this means architectural or visual works (sculptures, prints) and the accompanying feeling of permanent lighting compositions (which can also be creative, too).

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  • It must be noted that this act was fully replaced by the Directive 2015/2446, but the judgment of the EFTA Court remains fully valid, because the identity of grounds for refusal to register the TM within the scope concerned has been retained in both acts, and because of the need for the harmonisation of national legislation in EU states, the same strict barriers to the registration of the TM apply in the Polish industrial property law, too. These are: 1) TMs which are devoid of any distinctive character; 2) TMs which consist exclusively of signs or indications which may serve, in trade, to designate the kind, quality, quantity, intended purpose, value, geographical origin, or the time of production of the goods or of rendering of the service, or other characteristics of the goods or services; 3) TMs which consist exclusively of signs or indications which have become customary in the current language or in the bona fide and established practices of the trade; 4) signs which consist exclusively of: the shape resulting from the nature of the goods themselves, the shape of goods which is necessary to obtain a technical result or the shape which gives substantial value to the goods, and the most significant barrier from the perspective of the subject area in question: 5) TMs which are contrary to public policy or to accepted principles of morality.

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  • Filing number in EUIPO: 01136364, https://euipo.europa. eu/eSearch/#details/trademarks/011363645 (accessed on 7 December 2020)

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  • Registration of Works belonging to the Public Domain as Trademarks

Abstract Views: 56  |  PDF Views: 45

Authors

Ewelina Szatkowska
Department of Human Rights and Intellectual Property Law, University of Gdańsk, ul. Bażyńskiego 6, 80-980 Gdańsk, Poland

Abstract


The article addresses the issue of the increasingly frequent registration of public domain works as trademarks, points out the practical implications of such registrations, and acknowledges the conflicting decisions with respect to the same form of trade mark applied for, depending on whether it is the decision of the patent offices of the EU member states (or other than the EU regional systems) or the EU Intellectual Property Office. The analyzed topic should be considered in the context of the depletion of the public domain, the restriction of the freedom to use cultural goods, as well as the threat to the institution of the trademark itself. Thus, the admissibility of this type of registration should be carefully considered each time, taking into account the role played by the public domain, the motivation of the entity applying for such a trademark and a noticeable conflict of two systems: Copyright and Industrial Property Law.

Keywords


Copyright, Cultural Heritage, Intellectual Property System, Public Domain, Trademark

References