A few months ago, the European Intellectual Property Office informed the applicant for the trademark Stadium Hotel Leverkusen from Germany that his trademark application for ‘the Curve Hotel’ could not be registered for the territory of the European Union.
The first question that arises is what are the reasons for this decision? The name the Curve Hotel’ seems to be an excellent choice for a trademark for a hotel, especially considering the appearance of the hotel, which is curved.
However, according to the European Intellectual Property Office, this trademark is contrary to public order, because in Romanian, the term “Curve” means prostitute, hence the translation of this trademark would be hotel for prostitutes, which according to the European Intellectual Property Office is vulgar and offensive. Given that under European Union trademark law, if a trademark is considered offensive in one of the 27 member states, the European Intellectual Property Office will reject it.
However, this is not an isolated instance where the European Intellectual Property Office has refused to register a trademark containing the word “Curve”. There are around 50 trademark applications for various types of products (from combs to lighters) and in almost all of them the reason for refusal is the meaning of the word “Curve” in Romanian.
It is interesting to note that the meaning of the word “Curve” in Macedonian is the same as in Romanian language, however taking into account the different alphabet (Cyrillic/Latin) and the phonetics, we assume that it is highly unlikely that this will be absolute ground for refusal for the trademark ‘the Curve Hotel’