TRADEMARK | The EU General Court on the reputation of fictional character trademarks

On 13 May 2026, the General Court (GC) of the EU issued its judgment in case T-24/25 (Les Éditions Albert René v EUIPO – Works 11 Michał Lubiński), annulling the decision of the Board of Appeal (BoA) of the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) which had refused to invalidate the EU word mark “Obelix” registered for weapons, ammunition and explosives. The application for invalidity had been brought by the publisher of the Astérix & Obélix comic book series based on its earlier EU word mark “OBELIX” and the alleged detriment to its reputation under Articles 8(5) and 60(1)(a) of the Regulation (EU) 2017/1001 of 14 June 2017 on the European Union trademark (EUTMR). The GC found that the EUIPO had carried out an erroneous assessment of the evidence submitted to prove the reputation of the earlier mark. Notably, the BoA had failed to properly consider evidence showing the sign “Obelix” or “Obélix” used with the “®” symbol and had wrongly excluded evidence merely because the sign appeared together with “Asterix”. Furthermore, the GC held that the existence of a link between the marks cannot be ruled out solely on the basis of differences between the goods and services or the relevant publics, since that assessment requires a global appraisal of all the circumstances of the case, including the identity of the signs, the degree of reputation enjoyed by the earlier mark and its distinctive character.

Newsletter n. 119 – June 2026