A judgement issued by the EU General Court on 26 April 2018 ended opposition proceedings started in 2011 over Lionel Messi’s application to register the mark MESSI + Logo as a EU Trade Mark. The Barcelona striker can finally see his surname registered. The full judgement is available in French or Spanish here.

Background

Messi already owned a number of EU Trade Mark Registrations, in particular, for his full name LIONEL MESSI (EUTM Reg. 6353131), for LE0 MESS1 (stylised) (EUTM Reg. No. 9118852) and for his signature (EUTM Reg. Nos. 6353296 and 10394476), but the trade mark application in issue (EUTM Appl. No. 10181154) was just for the surname MESSI combined with a Logo (see the blog image at the top of this post). (more…)