For months, Banksy’s trademark on his well-known painting of an ape has been contested. The EU board of appeals has overruled the EUIPO’s determination that the unnamed British artist’s EU trademark on the spray-painted monkey is “invalid in its whole,” according to sources.
In November 2019, the greeting card company Full Colour Black formally opposed the trademark, alleging that it had been filed in “bad faith” and that the work was not distinctive. This is when the saga officially began.
In 2018, Banksy’s authenticating organization, Pest Control, filed a trademark application for the picture, which was subsequently registered in June of the following year.
The fact that Banksy can keep his identity a secret is arguably the most significant component of the victory. Banksy’s “Flower Thrower” copyright issue was previously litigated, and the court ruled that “it further cannot be established without question that the artist holds any copyrights to a graffiti” if “Banksy could not be identified as the ‘unquestionable owner’ of his graffiti, as his identity is a secret.”
The ability to hide his identity makes this a significant victory for Banksy, or more specifically, Pest Control Office Limited, according to Lee Curtis, a trademark expert at the law firm HGF Limited.
Black’s case hinged on their assertion that Pest Control filed the trademark without intending to compete with Black, according to Aaron Wood, a trademark attorney at Brandsmiths who represents the greeting card business.
In 2002, Banksy’s monkey made its debut on the wall of a nightclub in Brighton, wearing a sandwich board that read, “Laugh now, but one day we’ll be in power.” Since then, the image has appeared in several Banksy pieces, one of which sold at Sotheby’s in London in June 2021 for $2.9 million during their Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale.
