The news that two Italian brothers have registered what turn out to be two EU trade marks, one for the name Steve Jobs and the other for a logo comprising the name with the letter J, missing a bite-shaped piece like another well-known logo, illustrates how difficult it is to accommodate celebrities' personal names within the trade mark system. There was a time, long before EU trade marks arrived on the scene, when the Trade Marks Registry in the UK would not have allowed an application for registration of someone else's personal name as a trade mark to proceed without the consent of the owner of the name.
You might think that is how a trade mark system should work, but these Steve Jobs trade marks show the limitations of the law. First, the story tells us that the brothers were surprised that Apple had not registered Steve Jobs's name as a trade mark. But why should Apple have done so? Actually for the very bad reason that if you don't register a trade mark you run the risk of someone else grabbing it - a possibility since the switch from a use-based trade mark registration system, where the register records what distinctive signs businesses are using, to a registration-based system in which the property right comes into existence through registration. When we made that change in the UK in 1994, it put trade mark law on a very different footing - and incidentally condemned small (and not small) businesses to paying lots of fees and lawyers' bills for trade marks that up until then they never really needed to register.
Although there are many personal names of celebrities on the register, there are also examples of celebrities failing to secure registration. There are significant distinctiveness problems, as the Elvis Presley estate and later Sir Alex Ferguson, the Princess of Wales's executors and Corsair Toileteries Ltd who tried to register Jane Austen as a trade mark, found. Celebrities' names are not necessarily perceived as indications of commercial origin: in the case of deceased celebrities, they might be seen as some sort of commemoration.
Apple apparently tried to prevent the trade marks being registered, but without a trade mark of their own they must have been relying on common law rights - and even if Steve Jobs had used his name in trade and thus accumulated goodwill, which doesn't seem to be the way things happened because he adopted the Apple trade mark for his business, that would have been Mr Jobs's goodwill not Apple's (unless it had been assigned to the company). Would his estate have been better-placed to sue? Yes, probably, but still only if it owned some goodwill. Reputation - of which Mr Jobs had plenty - only becomes goodwill when it is used in trade.
A better argument might, perhaps, have been that the trade marks were not applied for in good faith - and that is an argument that I suppose could yet be deployed to have them declared invalid. But that is a very difficult route to take, the facts being hard to prove and the standard probably quite low. So a situation that most ordinary people (which in this context means "not trade mark lawyers") would imagine the law would not allow to arise, might be something that the perceived rightful owner can do nothing about.
You might think that is how a trade mark system should work, but these Steve Jobs trade marks show the limitations of the law. First, the story tells us that the brothers were surprised that Apple had not registered Steve Jobs's name as a trade mark. But why should Apple have done so? Actually for the very bad reason that if you don't register a trade mark you run the risk of someone else grabbing it - a possibility since the switch from a use-based trade mark registration system, where the register records what distinctive signs businesses are using, to a registration-based system in which the property right comes into existence through registration. When we made that change in the UK in 1994, it put trade mark law on a very different footing - and incidentally condemned small (and not small) businesses to paying lots of fees and lawyers' bills for trade marks that up until then they never really needed to register.
Although there are many personal names of celebrities on the register, there are also examples of celebrities failing to secure registration. There are significant distinctiveness problems, as the Elvis Presley estate and later Sir Alex Ferguson, the Princess of Wales's executors and Corsair Toileteries Ltd who tried to register Jane Austen as a trade mark, found. Celebrities' names are not necessarily perceived as indications of commercial origin: in the case of deceased celebrities, they might be seen as some sort of commemoration.
Apple apparently tried to prevent the trade marks being registered, but without a trade mark of their own they must have been relying on common law rights - and even if Steve Jobs had used his name in trade and thus accumulated goodwill, which doesn't seem to be the way things happened because he adopted the Apple trade mark for his business, that would have been Mr Jobs's goodwill not Apple's (unless it had been assigned to the company). Would his estate have been better-placed to sue? Yes, probably, but still only if it owned some goodwill. Reputation - of which Mr Jobs had plenty - only becomes goodwill when it is used in trade.
A better argument might, perhaps, have been that the trade marks were not applied for in good faith - and that is an argument that I suppose could yet be deployed to have them declared invalid. But that is a very difficult route to take, the facts being hard to prove and the standard probably quite low. So a situation that most ordinary people (which in this context means "not trade mark lawyers") would imagine the law would not allow to arise, might be something that the perceived rightful owner can do nothing about.
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