Brand Expiration Due to Vulgarization

Abstract

Vulgarization of a trademark is a much more usual phenomenon tan it seems to be, finding its explanation on the loss of distinctiveness of the trademark, which is the essential aspect of every trademark as it allows people to know the origin of the products or services they acquire, and instead becoming the common name to a genre of products or services for which it was registered. Nevertheless, vulgarization not only has a social aspect to it, but also finds a legal basis in article 54.1.b) of the Spanish Trademark Law, as well as some legal side effects, them being the expiration of the trademark and the cancellation of its registration. This piece of work focuses on the analysis of the requirements the Spanish law system sees as necessary in order to talk about expiration of a trademark due to vulgarization, as well as what is the opinion of the courts regarding this issue, and finally pointing out possible doings the owner of the trademark can do in order to prevent the crystallization of the process.