Registration of Works belonging to the Public Domain as Trademarks

Abstract

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