Category: Intellectual property law

Kylian Mbappé has trademarked his iconic goal celebration – why a pose can form part of a player’s protected brand

March 6, 2024 / / 0 Comments

By Dr Enrico Bonadio and Dr Andrea Zappalaglio

French football superstar Kylian Mbappé celebrates most of his goals by crossing his arms and tucking his hands underneath his armpits. It has become one of the most iconic goal celebrations in the world.

Mbappé, who is due to move to Spanish giants Real Madrid at the end of this season, has already taken steps to register a logo depicting his celebration as a trademark in several countries, as well as in the European Union. He has done the same for his surname, initials and most famous quotes.

The black-and-white logo depicts a smiling Mbappé, celebrating in his usual fashion.

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Lindt’s chocolate bunny trademark win shows shape matters to consumers

October 6, 2022 / / 1 Comment

Enrico Bonadio, City, University of London and Alina Trapova, University of Nottingham

In a move sure to upset chocoholics everywhere, discount supermarket Lidl was recently told to destroy its stocks of chocolate bunnies. The cull was ordered by a Swiss court that decided Lidl’s bunny was too close to confectioner Lindt’s iconic chocolate rabbit.

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The UK Intellectual Property Office’s Consultation on Computer-Generated Works

June 29, 2022 / / 2 Comments

Patrick Goold

The UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 contains an odd section concerning ‘computer-generated works’. Section 9(2) of the Act states that when a work has no ‘human author’ and is generated by a computer, the work ought to be protected by copyright for 50 years, with the copyright owned by the person who made the necessary ‘arrangements’ for the work’s generation.

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AI and IP: Building a Research Agenda

June 21, 2022 / / 2 Comments

Patrick Goold

Artificial intelligence poses new questions for intellectual property (IP) law. Can machines be inventors for purposes of patent law? Do creative works produced by AI deserve copyright protection? Is new legislation required to govern AI creativity? Courts, IP offices, and legislators in multiple jurisdictions are considering these questions.

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Introducing IP Accidents

February 14, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Patrick Goold

Imagine you are Olivia Rodrigo. This may be harder for some of us than others, but bear with me. You have just released your new single Brutal. Your new song has been called brilliant and one of the best songs of the year by critics. But then the phone rings with the bad news: your song contains a riff that is very similar to the famous guitar riff in Elvis Costello’s Pump It Up and you are being sued for copyright infringement.[1] Rats! As a responsible creator, you try to avoid copying material from others. You even have people in your record company who check your songs prior to release to avoid incidents like this. But alas, sometimes accidents still happen.

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Lessons from the Satan Shoes Legal Fight: Balancing Trademark Protection and Free Speech

April 11, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Enrico Bonadio and Magali Contardi

The legal battle between Nike and conceptual art collective MSCHF around their infamous Satan Shoes has been finally settled. After the recent decision of a New York judge ordering to temporarily halt the sales of the shoes, MSCHF has agreed to recall the shoes from the market to end the dispute.

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Work in progress: The EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement as a “platform” for shaping future trade relationships

March 15, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Giulio Kowalski

After four years of turbulent discussions and 1,400 pages of complex provisions, the EU and the UK (the “Parties”) signed the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) on 24 December 2020. Now that the much-feared risk of a no-deal Brexit seems to have been avoided, it could be high time to start digging into the details of the TCA and critically assess whether it is an effective and all-encompassing regulation or just a “platform” created in view of future negotiations and developments in the EU/UK (trading) relationships.

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Networked technologies in the car industry, standard essential patents and refusal to license: the CJEU will soon shed light in Nokia v Daimler

December 18, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Enrico Bonadio (City, University of London) – Luke McDonagh (London School of Economics)

Thanks to cutting-edge digital technology, cars are increasingly like “smartphones on wheels”. Therefore, manufacturers’ access to the latest 4G and 5G technologies is essential to navigation and communications. Notably however, such technologies are often protected by patents. These so-called standard essential patents (SEPs) frequently raise serious competition issues. In particular, we have witnessed an explosion in disputes over the appropriate remuneration to be paid to SEP-holders by those wishing to implement the patented technology in their products.

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