Politico
Europe’s intellectual property office has knocked back the Ukrainian application. But Snake Island soldier’s lawyers won’t give up.
Kyiv’s accidental war slogan “Russian warship, go fuck yourself” is at the center of a fierce trademark battle between Ukraine’s State Border Guard and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO).
The expression of defiance was first uttered in a brave response from a Ukrainian soldier to a Russian warship demanding a surrender as it prepared to attack Snake Island in the Black Sea in the opening hours of the invasion. In the two years since, the phrase has become a symbol of Kyiv’s resilience against Moscow. But to the EU intellectual property enforcers, it does not meet the requirement to become a trademark.
That’s left Ukraine’s border guards baffled.
“We believe that the authorship of such a trademark should belong to the state of Ukraine … as confirmation of the determination and invincibility of Ukrainian border guards,” Andriy Demchenko, spokesperson for the Ukrainian Border Guard Service, told POLITICO. “It is necessary to give credit to the defender who, with his act, his resolute demonstration of steadfastness, inspired people, Ukraine, and the global community.”
Brussels-based lawyers Andrej Bukovnik and Taras Kulbaba first filed the trademark application on March 16, 2022, under the name of the soldier — with his family’s permission — who first uttered the phrase.
The lawyers said this was a “unique opportunity to do something bigger” and a way to get ahead of what they say from experience would inevitably happen: someone else swooping in and claiming the trademark.
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