Registering the name of a famous author as a trademark raises a familiar clash. There is a legitimate commercial interest in licensing a name and stopping third parties from marketing ‘official’ goods that are not, in fact, authorised.
At the same time, EU trademark law is built around a narrower function. It protects signs that consumers use to identify commercial origin, and it refuses registration where the sign will be understood mainly as information about the goods or services, such as their content or subject matter.
Case R2248/2019‑G puts that tension in sharp focus and asks a direct question: in the markets at issue, does ‘GEORGE ORWELL’ operate as a trademark, or is it simply a cultural reference that describes what the product is about?
