The Court of Justice of European Union (CJE), following a dispute between the State Border Guard of Ukraine and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), ruled on Wednesday, the 13th of November, that the slogan “Russian warship, ho f*ck yourself” cannot be registered as a trademark in the European Union (EU), reports Politico.
The phrase was first used by a Ukrainian soldier in response to a Russian navy’s demand to surrender as it prepared to attack Snake Island in the Black Sea in 2022, when the Kremlin launched a full-scale invasion.
Since then, this phrase has become a symbol of Kyiv’s resistance to Moscow.
Ukraine argued that the trademark of the phrase should be owned by Kyiv to avoid someone else claiming the trademark and profiting from it. Commercial products with variations of the phrase “Russian warship, go f*ck yourself” are sold commercially on various trading platforms.
However, the court considers that the phrase, which Kyiv tried to register as a trademark in Russian and English, has no commercial origin, agreeing with the argument of the EU’s intellectual property enforcement authorities, which argued late last year that the slogan did not meet the requirements to become a trademark.
The Luxembourg-based court found that the phrase “very quickly became a symbol of Ukraine’s struggle against Russian aggression,” the ruling said. However, it added that the sign “fails to fulfil the essential function of a trademark if the average consumer does not see in its presence an indication of the origin of the goods or services, but only a political message”.