Banksy’s Battle For Trademark

Famous underground artist Banksy now a part of a trademark battle between his management company Pest Control Office Limited and a greetings card company called Full Colour Black. Pest Control Office has applied and obtained several trademarks reproducing iconic Banksy works. Full Colour Black has been using such works on their products and is now seeking one of these trademarks to be cancelled. The main problem was the fact that neither Banksy nor Pest Control was using their trademark in commerce activities. And in order to keep a trademark registration alive it has to be used distinguished products in market. By the outcome of that fact Banksy opened a homeware store in South London. The store is permanently closed however it has a website were such homeware has been available all of which already out of stock. In any case, Banksy has seen his rights protected by IP courts in the past, for instance a Milan court earlier this year stopped the organizers of an exhibition from selling merchandising with his artwork. However EUPO’s decision after the mentioned cancelation application remains unclear.