Banksy Prevails In Trademark Lawsuit, Preserving His Wish For Anonymity

Banksy will remain an enigma, a part of his selfhood that has been threatened in the past due to legal arguments that his identity must be known to prove he was a trademark or copyright owner.

At the heart of the latest dispute is the street artist’s Laugh Now artwork of an ape carrying a sandwich board reading, “Laugh now, but one day we’ll be in charge.” The image first appeared on the wall of a Brighton nightclub in 2002 and has been brought back into several of his works since. One of them sold for US$2.9 million at Sotheby’s London auction house in 2021, according to ARTnews.

Banksy’s authenticating office, Pest Control, applied to protect the spray-painted monkey in 2018, and the trademark was approved in 2019. This move was contested by greeting card firm Full Colour Black, which argued that the work was not distinctive enough and that the filing was done in “bad faith,” further accusing Banksy’s team of trying to monopolize the image with no intention of using the trademark.

In May 2021, the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) ruled that the monkey trademark was “invalid in its entirety.” Now, a board of appeal has overturned this decision, stating that the trademark’s opposer has “failed to prove” its stance that Banksy’s filing was not done in good faith, as quoted by the Art Newspaper.

The conclusion to this case contrasts that of a prior suit involving Banksy’s Flower Thrower, which the same greeting card company had insisted could not be copyrighted. The judge ruled in the firm’s favor, declaring that Banksy could not be named as the rightful owner of the artwork “as his identity is hidden.”

The fact that Banksy has been able to remain anonymous this time around will be surprising for some intellectual property experts, with trademark specialist Lee Curtis of European legal firm HGF Limited telling the Art Newspaper that the decision is “a significant victory for Banksy.”

Trademark lawyer Aaron Wood, whose intellectual property law firm Brandsmiths represents Full Colour Black, says his team is disappointed with the verdict but does not intend to file an appeal.

“We will take a reasoned view based upon what Banksy does next,” says the lawyer.

[via ARTnews and The Art Newspaper, cover photo 170344403 © Mihail Ivanov | Dreamstime.com]