In two landmark decisions delivered in December 2025 and May 2026, the Grand Board of Appeal of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) refused applications by the Estate of the Late Sonia Brownell Orwell, which administers the estate of George Orwell, to register GEORGE ORWELL, ANIMAL FARM and 1984 as EU trade marks for subject matter or content-related goods and services. Together, these rulings address the registrability of famous authors’ names and book titles as trade marks, and are of considerable interest to publishers, entertainment companies and the creative sector more broadly.

The Estate applied on 6 March 2018 to register three word marks as EU trade marks: GEORGE ORWELL, ANIMAL FARM and 1984. The applications covered a broad range of goods and services, including digital media, printed matter, clothing, games, and entertainment services. The motivation behind the applications was clear: with copyright in George Orwell’s works approaching expiry, the Estate wished to secure trade mark protection as an alternative means of controlling the use of the author’s name and book titles once copyright protection lapsed.

The EUIPO examiner partially refused all three applications for goods and services in Classes 9, 16, and 41 (and additionally Class 28 for ANIMAL FARM), on the grounds that the signs were descriptive of a characteristic, namely the subject matter or content of the relevant goods and services under Article 7(1)(c) EUTMR, and devoid of distinctive character under Article 7(1)(b) EUTMR. The applications were allowed to proceed for other goods and services which are not capable of having subject matter or content.

The Estate appealed all three refusals. Given their broader legal significance and a number of diverging prior decisions on the registrability of famous persons’ names and book titles, all three appeals were referred to the Grand Board of Appeal of the EUIPO. The Grand Board delivered its decision on GEORGE ORWELL (case R 2248/2019-G) on 19 December 2025, and its decision on ANIMAL FARM and 1984 (heard as joined cases R 1719/2019-G and R 1922/2019-G) on 27 May 2026. Both appeals were dismissed.

The cases attracted considerable interest. In addition to submissions from the Estate, written observations were filed by the International Trademark Association (INTA) and, at the request of the Grand Board, the EUIPO Executive Director. The same arguments applied across all three applications.

INTA warned that automatically excluding famous persons’ names or titles of famous artistic works from trade mark protection would risk disrupting many sectors of industry, from art and literature to sport, science and fashion. INTA emphasised that such signs should not be subject to a stricter threshold than other trade marks and that each case should be assessed individually on its merits.

The EUIPO Executive Director drew a useful distinction between the different functions of signs on a book: the title identifies the literary work, the author’s name identifies the artistic origin, and the publisher’s name identifies the commercial origin. The Executive Director accepted that neither authors’ names nor book titles are automatically unregistrable, but stated that if consumers perceive the sign as describing the subject matter rather than indicating commercial origin, it will be descriptive.

The Estate argued that an author’s name is by its very nature distinctive, as it serves to distinguish the works of one author from those of others, and that book titles likewise function as indicators of commercial origin. The Estate pointed to its careful policing and licensing of the name and titles, to the existence of prior registrations for famous authors’ names and book titles, and to the fact that all adaptations had been made faithfully and under its strict editorial control. The Estate further contended that trade mark protection serves an important role even after copyright expires, as it enables the prevention of altered or censored versions of Orwell’s works that could be misleadingly attributed to the author.

Relevant public

The Grand Board determined that the relevant public comprised both the general public and professionals in the education and entertainment sectors. Because George Orwell was a British author, the relevant public was particularly the Irish and Maltese public, as those parts of the EU have the closest cultural and linguistic connections to the United Kingdom.

Meaning of the sign

The Grand Board had little difficulty concluding that the sign GEORGE ORWELL would be perceived by the relevant public as the name of the well-known British author. It noted that Orwell’s fame is an undisputed and well-known fact, that the adjective “Orwellian” has entered the English language, and that his works remain enormously influential.

Copyright and trade mark protection

On the relationship between copyright and trade marks, a key issue in the case, the Grand Board held that these are different exclusive rights serving different purposes. The existence of copyright is not, in itself, a sufficient justification for granting trade mark rights in perpetuity to an author’s name. Nor does the status of copyright protection, or its expiry, directly determine whether the author’s name is distinctive as a trade mark. However, the Grand Board acknowledged that copyright expiry may be indirectly relevant: when works enter the public domain, adaptations and new editions may proliferate, increasing the use of the author’s name and reinforcing the perception that the sign is descriptive.

The criteria for subject-matter descriptiveness

At the heart of the decision, the Grand Board established a non-exhaustive and non-cumulative list of criteria for assessing whether a famous author’s name is descriptive of the subject matter of goods and services:

• Fame and recognition of the author: whether the name is famous and recognised in the relevant territory, evidenced by books sold, prizes awarded, academic study and adaptations, etc.
• Widespread use of the author’s works: the extent to which the works have been distributed, adapted and included in educational curricula.
• Social and cultural integration: present-day recognition of the author, such as prizes, monuments or other forms of cultural recognition.
• Duration of fame: whether the author has been known for a long period and still enjoys recognition.
• Derived terms: whether nouns or adjectives have been derived from the author’s name (e.g. “Orwellian”, “Kafkaesque”, “Dickensian”), indicating deep cultural impact.
• Market reality: whether the relevant public’s perception corresponds to how goods and services are actually categorised, for example whether a library or bookshop section is associated with the author.

Applying these criteria, the Grand Board found that George Orwell satisfied all of them. The Board distinguished the case from the earlier Anne Frank decision, noting that whereas Anne Frank is known for a single autobiographical work, George Orwell produced a large and varied body of work, making his name even more apt to be perceived as a subject-matter descriptor.

Connection with the goods and services

The Grand Board went on to assess the link between the sign and each category of goods and services, concluding that for Classes 9, 16 and 41, the relevant public would directly and immediately understand GEORGE ORWELL as indicating that the goods or services concern the author’s works, life or person, rather than as an indicator of commercial origin.

Lack of distinctiveness

Having found the mark descriptive under Article 7(1)(c) EUTMR, the Grand Board also confirmed that the sign lacked distinctive character under Article 7(1)(b) EUTMR, both as a consequence of its descriptive nature and independently. The sign would be perceived merely as referring to the famous author and not as an indicator of the commercial origin of the goods and services.

Identity of the applicant

Notably, the Grand Board held that the identity of the applicant, even where the applicant is the author’s own estate, has no bearing on the assessment of absolute grounds for refusal. This principle, consistent with settled case law, means that the fact of being the estate or heir of a famous author does not afford any advantage in trade mark examination.

Obiter remarks

In obiter dicta, the Grand Board considered whether registration of the sign could be refused on grounds of public policy (Article 7(1)(f) EUTMR) or as giving substantial value to goods (Article 7(1)(e)(iii) EUTMR). On public policy, the Board found that registering the name of a famous author does not in itself desecrate his prestige or violate public morality or the fundamental values of society. On substantial value, the Board concluded that the name of an author does not constitute a “characteristic which gives substantial value to the goods” within the meaning of the provision.

The Grand Board’s reasoning in the ANIMAL FARM and 1984 decision closely follows the framework established in George Orwell. The relevant public was held to be the same, and the Board decided that the signs would be understood by such public as a reference to George Orwell’s famous novels and, more broadly, their underlying political themes. The Grand Board adopted similar reasoning on the relevance of copyright and of the identity of the applicant. The Board also discussed a range of factual indicators, such as the fame and popularity, longevity, dissemination (also beyond the work’s literary form, including through film, television and theatrical adaptations) and cultural impact of the work, as elements to be taken into account for assessing whether a book title is descriptive of the subject matter of goods and services. Not surprisingly, the outcome was the same: refusal for all subject matter or content-related goods and services.
However, this decision addresses several distinct issues that did not arise in the context of the George Orwell decision.

First, the Grand Board considered the EUIPO Guidelines on the notion of subject matter or content, as well as the principles of the Common Practice CP16 on the assessment of signs describing the subject matter or content of goods and services, which had not yet been published at the time of the George Orwell decision. Even though titles of well-known books fall outside the scope of the CP16, the Board stated that it was helpful, in particular as regards identifying goods and services capable of having subject matter or content.

Second, the Grand Board rejected the Estate’s argument that the complexity of the 1984 and ANIMAL FARM novels distinguished them from simpler works (such as THE JUNGLE BOOK) whose titles had previously been refused registration. The Board held that narrative complexity is irrelevant to the descriptiveness assessment: the decisive criterion is whether the sign immediately creates an association in the mind of the relevant public and will be recognised as a book title. Even consumers who have never read 1984 associate the title with a society characterised by excessive control and surveillance, owing to the widespread cultural use of concepts derived from the novel such as “Big Brother” and “thoughtcrime”.

Third, whereas in George Orwell the Board had not needed to consider the effect of adaptations (since the sign was the author’s name, not a work title), in the Animal Farm and 1984 decision the Estate placed significant weight on its careful editorial control of all adaptations, arguing that consumers had been “educated” to perceive the titles as origin-specific. The Grand Board dismissed this argument, holding that there was no evidence to support this, and commercial or licensing agreements are not known to the public and do not shape the meaning consumers attribute to a sign.

With respect to the refusal ground of Article 7(1)(b) the Grand Board addressed the functional distinction between book titles and trade marks. Whereas an author’s name may at least theoretically function as an indicator of origin (identifying who stands behind a body of work), a book title serves primarily to designate and distinguish the literary work itself. The Grand Board drew a clear line between intellectual or artistic origin and commercial origin: the fact that consumers associate the titles with George Orwell as the author relates to the intellectual origin of the works, not to the commercial origin of the goods and services. It is the publisher’s name, not the book title, that consumers look to as an indicator of commercial origin. According to the Board, this finding of non-distinctiveness not only applies to books, but to the other goods and services alike because the works have been widely disseminated through numerous television, theatre and film adaptations, reaching a broad audience.

Finally, in a notable obiter dictum that went further than the George Orwell decision, the Grand Board observed that Germany and France provide specific national protection for the titles of works, and encouraged the EU legislator to consider creating an EU-wide sui generis right for the protection of work titles, acknowledging that trade mark law may not be the appropriate vehicle for the legitimate interests at stake.

The George Orwell decision is now the leading authority in the EU for assessing the registrability of famous persons’ names as trade marks, and the Animal Farm and 1984 decision extends the same approach to famous book titles. Together, they set a high bar for registration for subject matter or content-related goods and services. Rights holders in the entertainment, publishing and creative sectors should take careful note of the following practical points.

No automatic exclusion, but a high bar for the most famous names and book titles. The Grand Board confirmed that famous persons’ names and famous book titles are not per se unregistrable. Each application must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. However, the more culturally integrated an author, creator or work is, the more likely their name or title will be considered descriptive of subject matter or content-related goods and services. For household names with enduring cultural legacies, akin to Shakespeare, Hitchcock or Orwell, and for titles that have become deeply embedded in public consciousness, the path to registration in for subject matter or content related goods and services in Classes 9, 16 and 41 will be extremely narrow.

Careful specification drafting is essential. Both decisions underscore the critical importance of how goods and services are described in the application. The refusals were limited to goods and services that can have thematic subject matter or content: digital media, books, games, entertainment and educational services. The applications succeeded for others goods and services (such as those in Classes 18, 21 and 25) where the name or title does not describe the subject matter or content. Indeed, in the Animal Farm and 1984 cases the Grand Board noted that the applicant’s own limitation of the specification to goods “consisting of content on the subject of political fiction” made the descriptive link even clearer. Applicants should consider narrowing or tailoring their specifications to emphasise goods and services where the sign functions as an indicator of origin rather than subject matter or content, and should avoid limitations that reinforce a thematic connection.

Copyright expiry heightens the risk. Although copyright status is not directly determinative, both decisions acknowledged that the expiry of copyright and the consequent proliferation of adaptations and editions can strengthen the descriptive perception of an author’s name or of a book title. Estates and publishers should therefore consider filing trade mark applications well before copyright expires, when control over the use of the name or title may still support arguments for distinctiveness. Applicants may also wish to build evidence of acquired distinctiveness through use under Article 7(3) EUTMR.

Acquired distinctiveness may offer a route. The Grand Board’s decision addressed only inherent distinctiveness. It remains open to applicants to demonstrate that a famous person’s name has acquired distinctive character through the use that has been made of it under Article 7(3) EUTMR. Estates and publishers that can demonstrate extensive, long-term and consistent use of the name as a badge of origin through licensing, merchandising and quality control may be able to overcome the objection.

Prior registrations offer limited comfort. The applicant pointed to existing EU trade mark registrations for the names of authors such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ian Fleming and Albert Camus. The Grand Board dismissed this argument, noting that those registrations predate the current, stricter approach and have never been assessed by the Boards of Appeal. The fact of earlier registration does not bind the Office in subsequent proceedings. Existing registrations for famous names may also be vulnerable to invalidity proceedings.

The George Orwell decision is under appeal. The Estate has filed a further appeal to the General Court against the George Orwell decision. It may be expected that the Animal Farm and 1984 decision will likewise be appealed. The General Court’s judgments will be closely watched, particularly on whether the Grand Board’s approach to subject-matter descriptiveness is endorsed, modified or overturned.

Broader implications beyond literature. Although the decisions concern the name of an author and two book titles, the reasoning applies to any famous person or cultural work associated with subject matter or content-related goods and services, including musicians, composers, film directors, artists and other cultural figures. The SIBELIUS decision, which the Grand Board explicitly endorsed, demonstrates that the same principles apply to composers and their works. The Grand Board’s recommendation that the EU legislator consider creating an EU-wide sui generis right for work titles is also of considerable significance, and may prompt legislative debate on alternative forms of protection. Stakeholders across the publishing, entertainment and creative industries should review their trade mark portfolios and filing strategies in light of these decisions.