A Puerto Rican company linked to Escobars family had filed to trademark the name of the notorious Colombian drug lord in the EU in September 2021.
An European Court of Justice on Wednesday ruled that the name of late Colombian drug lord, Pablo Escobar, cannot be registered as an EU trade mark, after his brother tried to lay a claim.
A Puerto Rican company linked to Escobars family had filed to trademark the name of the notorious Colombian drug lord in the EU in September 2021.
The applicant argued that names such as Bonnie and Clyde, Al Capone and Che Guevara have already been registered as EU trademarks and that, Pablo Escobar, because of his many good deeds for the poor in Colombia, has become a mythical figure in mainstream popular culture.
Reuters reports that the court upheld the decision of the EU''s intellectual property office (EUIPO) that refused a trade mark application by Escobar Inc. in 2022.
"EUIPO correctly found that those persons would associate the name of Pablo Escobar with drug trafficking and narco-terrorism and with the crimes and suffering resulting therefrom, rather than with his possible good deeds in favour of the poor in Colombia," the court said in a statement.
Escobar Inc. was founded in Puerto Rico by Pablo Escobar''s brother Roberto de Jesús Escobar Gaviria, who spent 12 years in prison for his role in his brother''s criminal organisation.
Gaviria said in 2020 that his company would launch a foldable smartphone called the Escobar Fold 1.
The company currently sells a crypto currency called Escobar Cash, according to its website.
According to the report, Pablo Escobar led one of the world''s most powerful criminal organisations, the Medellin cartel.
His fortune, made from trafficking cocaine, was estimated by Forbes in 1987 to have reached over $3billion although some accounts put it at much higher.
Thousands of people were killed in cartel-related violence during and after his death in 1993 when he was shot by security forces.
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