EUIPO Grand Board refuses registration of ‘GEORGE ORWELL’ as a trade mark for inter alia books

Can you register, as a trade mark, the name of an author, including an author – like George Orwell – whose works are no longer protected by copyright? Perhaps yes, perhaps no.

This, in a nutshell, is the Solomonic response that, on 19 December 2025, the Grand Board of the EUIPO gave in its long-awaited decision (R 2248/2019-G) regarding an application to register the name ‘GEORGE ORWELL’ as a trade mark for several goods and services in classes 9, 16, 28, and 41.

The application, filed by the estate Orwell’s late wife, had been partially rejected in 2019 for lack of distinctiveness and descriptiveness. The EUIPO examiner’s decision was appealed in 2019 and referred to the Grand Board the following year. The referral appeared justified by the existence of contrasting decisions of the Office regarding the registrability of names (but also titles of their works – indeed, while ‘GEORGE ORWELL’ is now decided, ‘1984’ and ‘ANIMAL FARM’ are still pending). INTA and EUIPO Executive Director also submitted observations.

Overall, cases like this are important because they test the borders of trade mark law, including its potential to circumvent other time-limited IP rights like, in this case, expired copyrights. But let’s proceed with order and see the main points of this lengthy (57 pages) decision.

Descriptiveness

The Grand Board began with descriptiveness under Article 7(1)(c) EUTMR, noting that the use of the phrase ‘other characteristics’ in the provision entails that that absolute ground merely applies to signs “which serve to designate a property, easily recognisable by the relevant class of persons, of the goods or the services in respect of which registration is sought”, with such property being inherent and objective to the nature of those goods or services.

Applying this guidance, the Grand Board considered that:

• The goods and services for which registration of ‘GEORGE ORWELL’ is sought are directed at both the general public and professionals.
• The relevant public would be primarily consumers in Ireland and Malta because “for historical, linguistic and cultural reasons, that part of the European Union has the closest connections with the United Kingdom” and, seemingly, UK literature, of which Orwell is a well-known representative.
• Copyright status is irrelevant to trade mark registrability, as these IP rights perform different functions and are subject to different requirements.
• Crucially, when an author is famous, a sign consisting of their name “may be perceived by the relevant public as describing the content (subject matter) of the goods and services”: “A sign can simultaneously be famous for denoting someone or something and depending on the nature of the product or service at issue, be descriptive of the content or character of the goods or services with reference to which it is used.” To this end, a number of criteria need to be considered alongside the author’s fame: widespread use of the author’s work(s), social and cultural integration, period for which the author is known, nouns or adjectives created from the name of the author (e.g., “Orwellian”), and market reality.

Applying the above, the Grand Board concluded that “for the relevant public, the sign ‘GEORGE ORWELL’ will be immediately and unequivocally understood as referring to that well-known British writer. The contested sign is therefore inherently apt to indicate, without further mental effort, that the goods and services in question concern the author George Orwell, his writings or the ideas and themes deriving from them as their subject matter.”

Lack of distinctiveness

Turning to distinctiveness, which would have not been necessary to consider given the applicability of the absolute ground in Article 7(1)(c) EUTMR to the present case, the Grand Board also found the mark unregistrable under Article 7(1)(b). All this despite that the registrability of names is not subject to any special rules compared to other signs.

Like for descriptiveness the Grand Board noted that copyright status (including moral rights, which – incidentally – under UK law last as long as economic rights!) of a work is not relevant.

In the present case ‘GEORGE ORWELL’ “is non-distinctive not only because of being descriptive, but also because it consists of the name of the famous British author George Orwell. It therefore merely indicates to the relevant public that the goods and services concerned comprise, concern, or are otherwise linked to the work, life, or personality of George Orwell.”

Other absolute grounds

The Grand Board briefly considered other potentially applicable absolute grounds. Of particular relevance in my view are the exclusions concerning public policy/morality (Article 7(1)(f) and substantial value (Articl 7(1)(e)(iii)).

Public policy/morality

Regarding the former, the Grand Board provided a much-welcome and rational reading of the EFTA judgment in Vigeland [IPKat here and here], holding – finally! – that not everything is cultural heritage and not everything is misappropriation of cultural heritage. Certainly, it is not to seek to register the name of a famous author in relation to goods and services like those at issue here. As such the exclusion concerning public policy / morality would not apply.

Substantial value

As regards substantial value (which, incidentally, was also considered by the EFTA Court in Vigeland), the Grand Board correctly held that “a trade mark for the name of an author for books, would not extend the life of other IP rights as this provision does not cover moral rights of an author. This is because the author is merely the initial owner of the copyright in the books they have written. It is the literary work itself (not the name of the author), which is protected by copyright and which, once in the public domain, can be freely used, reproduced and adapted (subject to possible restrictions regarding the moral rights of the author).” As such “obtaining a trade mark for the name of the author would not allow the trade mark owner to exploit functions that are meant to return to the public domain upon the expiry of copyright protection.”

Comment

Albeit expressly obiter, a welcome aspect of the decision is the contextualization of Vigeland and the refusal to read it as preventing registration of anything remotely linked to cultural heritage and/or copyright. There are however some questionable (even Orwellian?) aspects of the decision, particularly in the discussion of descriptiveness. Two in particular stand out:

• The fact that, for ‘GEORGE ORWELL’, the relevant public would be that of Ireland and Malta (para 44), when Orwell is one of the best-known authors in modern Western literature - worldwide! In my view this is a puzzling statement. Sure, there are authors who may be only known in certain countries (or even certain circles), but considering Orwell a ‘local’ author is inappropriate and incorrect. It is like saying that Simone de Beauvoir is only known to the French, Dante Alighieri’s Divina Commedia is only read in Italy, and only the Greeks know about the Odyssey.
• ‘LE JOURNAL D’ANNE FRANK’ can be a trade mark because, unlike Orwell, Anne Frank is only known for one book (para 86). And so? There are several, seminal authors who are famous because of one book only: take Emily Brontë (Wuthering Heights), Margaret Mitchell (Gone with the Wind), Marcel Proust (À la Recherche du Temps Perdu), or Astrid Lindgren (Pippi Långstrump). Can these authors be regarded as being less famous than those authors who have written, say, 20 novels? I don’t think so.

Overall, the reasoning in ‘GEORGE ORWELL’ is full of nuances (and some shadows too). As such, it is highly unlikely to be the final word on registrability of names as trade marks. That said, let’s now see what the fate of ‘1984’ and ‘ANIMAL FARM’ is going to be, albeit it is hard to imagine how it could differ from that of ‘GEORGE ORWELL’.

[Originally published on The IPKat on 26 December 2025]