In a judgment handed down on Wednesday 17 July (Case T-255/23), the General Court of the European Union dismissed the action brought by Escobar Inc., a company established in Puerto Rico, against the refusal of the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) to register the word sign Pablo Escobar as an EU trade mark.
According to the Court, the EUIPO was right to consider that citizens would associate goods and services bearing the name of the Colombian drug trafficker, who was shot dead by the Colombian police in 1993, with drug trafficking and the crime and suffering that goes with it, rather than with his charity work for the poor in Colombia.
If registered, the Pablo Escobar trademark would therefore be perceived as contrary to the fundamental values and moral standards prevailing within the EU.
The Court added that Pablo Escobar’s fundamental right to the presumption of innocence had not been infringed because, although the Colombian trafficker had never been convicted of a criminal offence, he was publicly perceived in Spain as a symbol of organised crime.
See the Court’s judgment: https://aeur.eu/f/btc (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)