EUIPO Rejects Trademark Applications for George Orwell’s Name and Book Titles

In December 2025 and May 2026, the Grand Board of Appeal of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) issued final decisions in three trademark cases concerning the marks “GEORGEORWELL”, “ANIMALFARM” and “1984”, dismissing all appeals and upholding the examiners’ refusals. The cases, which lasted over eight years, address a long‑debated legal question: the registrability of a well‑known author’s name and literary work titles for content‑based goods and services.

On 6 March 2018, the estate of Sonia Brownell Orwell – George Orwell’s second wife – filed three EU trademark applications for the word marks “GEORGEORWELL”, “ANIMALFARM” and “1984”, covering a broad range of goods and services in Classes 9, 16, 28 (only for “ANIMALFARM”) and 41, including digital media, printed matter, clothing, games and entertainment services.

George Orwell, the renowned British novelist, journalist and social commentator, died in 1950. His works, Animal Farm and *1984*, entered the public domain in the EU on 1 January 2020. The estate sought to use trademark rights as a substitute means to continue controlling the commercial use of the author’s name and book titles after copyright protection expired.

In the “GEORGE ORWELL” case, the Grand Board held that for goods and services in Classes 9, 16 and 41 where “content” is a core feature, the sign “GEORGE ORWELL” would be immediately and unequivocally perceived by the relevant public as referring to the famous British author, thus inherently indicating that the goods and services are themed around George Orwell, his works or the ideas derived therefrom.

The Board found that Orwell’s works are globally recognised, widely taught and frequently adapted; they are continuously republished, adapted and analysed. Orwell’s name is used for prizes, foundations, lectures, public commemorations and street names. More than 75 years after his death, his reputation remains enduring. The term “Orwellian” has entered English dictionaries as both an adjective and a noun. Consumers would expect that books, films and educational services bearing the mark “GEORGE ORWELL” relate to his life, works or themes.

The Board pointed out that an author’s name identifies the artistic source of a work, not the commercial source of the goods or services. When purchasing a book, consumers consider three informational elements: the title (identifying the work), the author’s name (identifying the artistic source) and the publisher’s name (identifying the commercial source). “GEORGE ORWELL” is a typical indicator of artistic source and cannot fulfil the trademark function of indicating commercial origin.

The Board explicitly stated that copyright and trademark protection confer different types of exclusive rights: the former is based on the originality of creation, while the latter relies on the ability of a sign to distinguish commercial source. The existence or expiry of copyright in an author’s works does not, by itself, determine the distinctiveness of the author’s name as a trademark.

In the “ANIMAL FARM” and “1984” cases, the Board held that “ANIMAL FARM” and “1984” are, in the perception of the relevant public, primarily and uniquely associated with George Orwell’s two famous novels. When used for goods and services in Class 9 (recorded media, electronic publications, etc.), Class 16 (books, printed matter, etc.), Class 28 (games, etc.) and Class 41 (education, entertainment services, etc.), consumers would immediately understand them as descriptive of the content of the goods.

The Board specifically rejected the applicant’s argument that “reputation should not constitute a bar to registration”. It held that the basic function of a book title is to distinguish a particular work, enabling the public to identify and refer to that literary creation – functioning as a reference to content, not as an indication of commercial origin. The essential function of a trademark is to guarantee the identity of the commercial origin of goods or services. The high reputation of a literary work may, on the contrary, “fix” its title as a reference to the work itself, thereby precluding the possibility of it functioning as a badge of commercial origin.

The applicant relied on the successful registration of “Le journal d’Anne Frank” as a precedent. However, the Board distinguished that case on the grounds that The Diary of Anne Frank is an autobiographical work whose title corresponds uniquely to that specific work, whereas Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty‑Four are political allegories and dystopian novels whose themes have evolved into universal cultural references, and numerous adaptations have weakened their link to a single source.

In an obiter dictum, the Grand Board noted that some Member States, such as Germany and France, already provide special protection for work titles under their national laws (e.g., Germany’s trade mark protection system). The Board encouraged EU legislators to consider creating a unified EU‑wide right for the protection of work titles, in order to address the legitimate interest in protecting such titles.