Protection of literary and artistic titles under Trademark Law
Protection of literary and artistic titles under Trademark Law

Summary/Abstract: In general, titles are protected according to the fundamental tenets of unfair competition law and copyright law. This study aimed at drawing attention to the possibility of extending the protection of titles to the protection regulated under the trademark law. Generally, under trademark principles the sign should have the sufficient distinctive character, cannot be descriptive, generic or customary and has the ability to distinguish products from different companies. While the principal role of the trademark is to indicate commercial origin, the role of the title is to identify the work and also introduce into the subject of the work. There is why in most cases registration of titles is not possible. Considerations about that issue have also become a subject of a ruling of former Judgment of the Court of First Instance regarding "Dr No” case. In this ruling the court stressed that the title of the work can be protected as a trademark but under the condition that it does not indicate artistic origin, but commercial origin. The consequence of such notion is a legal discourse, which has been going on for a long time, dedicated to qualifying titles as trademarks.

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