Ukraine loses battle to trademark ‘Russian warship, go f**ok your self’ slogan

In the years since, the phrase has turn into an emblem of Kyiv’s resilience in opposition to Moscow. 

But Ukraine claimed that authorship of the phrase ought to belong to Kyiv, to keep away from anybody else claiming the trademark and profiting off the slogan. Commercial merchandise that includes variations of the phrase “Russian warship, go fuck your self” are being offered on a number of procuring platforms.

However, based on the EU’s General Court, the phrase — which Kyiv tried to trademark in Russian and English — “just isn’t perceived as a sign of economic origin,” accepting the argument of the EU’s mental property enforcers, who claimed late final 12 months that the slogan didn’t meet the necessities to turn into a trademark.

The Luxembourg-based courtroom thought-about that the phrase “had turn into in a short time an emblem of Ukraine’s battle in opposition to Russian aggression,” the ruling stated. But it added {that a} signal “is incapable of fulfilling the important perform of a commerce mark if the typical client doesn’t understand, in its presence, the indication of the origin of the products or companies, however solely a political message.”