What are the prior rights that may conflict with trademark rights?
Conflicting rights are commonplace in legal systems, and trademark rights are no exception. Trademark rights may clash with a range of prior rights, including trade name rights, copyrights, industrial design rights, name rights, and portrait rights. While a trademark is used to identify the source of a product, a trade name distinguishes businesses. Therefore, if a company attempts to register the trade name of a well-known business as a trademark, it may infringe the trade name rights of the original company. Copyrighted works of art and music are also subject to trademark protection, including the figurative elements and music used in creating the trademark. Additionally, industrial designs are three-dimensional and aesthetically pleasing and can be utilized in industry, which means that trademark rights may also conflict with prior industrial design rights. Personality rights, such as name and portrait rights, may also conflict with trademark rights. In practice, if someone with the same name as a celebrity applies for a trademark, the application may be rejected on the grounds of damaging the public interest or infringing on the celebrity's name rights.
Comments