EU Court: No, You Can’t Trademark ‘I ♥’ For All The Things

Trademark

from the free-love,-maaaaan dept

It was over a decade ago that Mike wrote about the state of New York’s trademark bullying ways when it comes to enforcing its trademarks for “I ♥ NY.” Now, it should be obvious just how absurd it is for the state to even hold onto a trademark designed to promote the state, nevermind the manner in which the state government has enforced that mark. But the overall point is that such a broad trademark doesn’t serve as a source identifier.

Well how about one even broader than that? Over in Europe, German apparel company Spread Group applied for a trademark in 2022 for all kinds of categories. The mark applied for? “I ♥”. That’s it. That’s the entire applied for mark.

The idea was to get the intellectual rights of a capital “I” followed by a red heart, printed on three specific parts of clothing — left chest, inside label, and behind the neck. This was not considered distinctive enough for the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), which analysed the request.

The EU office rejected the applications, pointing out that the symbol simply reads as “I love”, a message so common that it can’t reasonably be traced back to any one brand. Substantially, the symbol lacked the distinctive character, the essential criterion used by EUIPO for granting trademark protection. As in the world of fashion, hearts and declarations of love are just about everywhere, the “I ♥” doesn’t quite make the cut.

I mean… yeah? The idea of a single company locking up that letter/symbol combination, ubiquitous in the apparel industry, across an entire continent is plainly absurd. Far from operating within the purpose of trademark laws generally, this is quite obviously not about protecting the public from confusion, nor the company from tarnishment. This was a pure money and control grab from the jump. I’m sure there were suited-executives in some boardroom in Germany licking their lips about all the money that would be made from strong-armed licensing deals and/or trademark lawsuits.

So tantalizing was the prospect, in fact, that the company actually appealed EUIPO’s rightful decision up to the EU General Court. Unfortunately for them, things didn’t go any differently there.

But the Court wasn’t feeling the love, and they sided with the EUIPO, ruling that neither the symbol nor where it appears on the clothing items is not enough to distinguish the products from those of other brands.

The ruling reinforces the principle that commonly used symbols and expressions, even when stylised or strategically placed, cannot be monopolised through trademark registration unless they clearly identify the source of a product.

Sane trademark ruling shouldn’t be something we have to celebrate, but c’est la vie, I guess. But it sure would be nice if the USPTO could sit up and take notice of such sanity, devoid of it as they seem to be when it comes to New York’s mark.

Filed Under: eu, euipo, love, trademark
Companies: spread group