Registration of Works belonging to the Public Domain as Trademarks

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.