Use of a word in a trade mark does not make it copyrightable, rules Polish court

"Using the word as a trade mark shall not affect the possibility of it being [copyrightable]", said the Polish Supreme Court in a ruling from June last year that has just come to light.

The case involved packaging company Krea and dairy firm Obory. Krea sued Obory for using the term 'jogi' to describe one of its products.

Obory was not guilty of copyright infringement as the word 'jogi' lacked originality and was not copyrightable, the Supreme Court ruled.

"The presumption of fact that every product of human intellectual work which has the copyright protection, without demonstrating the creative elements, there is no basis in law and is too far-fetched," said the court ruling, in an automatic translation from Polish. The court said single words could be copyrightable, but only in exceptional circumstances.

"As a rule, single words ... do not have the characteristics of creativity," said the ruling. "Sometimes, but only in exceptional cases [a word] has a startling vividness and brilliance," the ruling said. The word 'jogi' was not formed through sufficient creativity to become copyrightable, the court said.