Banksy Loses Trademark Battle (Again) Over Famed Monkey Image
Image via erokism / Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
Last year, Banksy lost the trademark to his iconic Flower Thrower graffiti. The court ruled that the famed street artist couldn’t claim the work as a trademark unless he had chosen to reveal his true identity.
This month, Banksy has once again lost a trademark dispute, this time over an iconic image of a monkey. The character first appeared in 2002, when a nightclub in Brighton, UK, commissioned Banksy for the work.
Since then, Banksy has used the iconic image time and again, including for an artwork that sold at auction house Christie’s for US$2.1 million.
As per The Art Newspaper, the court has now ruled that Banksy’s EU trademark is “declared invalid in its entirety.”
In the Flower Thrower case, Banksy had “opened” a Gross Domestic Product store and filled it with items “created specifically to fulfill a particular trademark category under EU law.”
However, the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) isn’t buying it, ruling this week that the artist’s trademark registrations “were not intended to be used,” and that he had “concocted sham efforts to try and mislead the EUIPO into believing there was such an intent.”
According to the court, at the time Banksy filed to trademark the monkey image, it already existed as graffiti in public spaces. The artist had even provided high-resolution versions on his site and invited the public to download the work.
The artist has refiled the Flower Thrower trademark, though the next few rulings by the EUIPO will determine if Banksy will retain any trademark rights in the EU henceforth.
[via The Art Newspaper, cover image via erokism / Flickr (CC BY 2.0)]
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