Law Weblog

Grrrrrr, the “FCUK” Trade Mark is not invalid

Monday 10 July 2006 at 7:43 pm | In News | Post Comment

The Trade Mark “FCUK” can be registered by French Connection Limited.
It was claimed in an appeal to the Appointed Person that the controversial trade mark was “contrary to … accepted principles of morality” under Section 3(3)(a) of the Trade Marks Act 1994.

It was argued that the acronym caused offence not because it is seen as the swear word “f**k” because of wordplay, mistake or misconstruing of the letters, but because it essentially was the swear word. It was so obviously intended to be the swear word that everyone would interpret it as such and therefore was contrary to “accepted principles of morality”. This line of reasoning was rejected by the Appointed Person, Richard Arnold QC on 27 May 2006.

The mark will continue to offend a section of society but nevertheless French Connection Limited can continue to benefit from it (if people buy their offending products).

This case was distinguished from the “FOOK” case, where it was held that the word “FOOK” could be phonetically identical to the word “f**k” and therefore the application was rejected.