Humor and the Intellectual Property Law – Protecting Cultural Heritage in the Context of Parody

• Autoři: JEŽEK Michal
• Rok publikování: 2022
• Druh: Další prezentace na konferencích
• Popis: This contribution covers the topic of humor in the context of the intellectual property law. As the IP law protects author’s creations, such as copyrighted works or trademarks, it represents the way to protect the cultural heritage. Without any doubt, humor is capable of infringing the IP rights, especially in the form of parody. Parody may be parasitic to the distinctive character and to the identification of the protected work or even it might create a defamation to the reputation of the original. On the other hand, parody might be found legal in the context of freedom of expression or freedom of art. This contribution presents the case study which is focused on the demonstrative trademark parody case (the case was not resolved at court) from the Czech Republic in the matter of “IbalGIN”. It is the case of beverage – pink gin, which is being sold as “IbalGIN”, which is the similar name to the famous pain killer medicine. Based on the current IP case law, the US law and European law approaches to deciding (trademark) parody cases are compared. By that, the possible ways to decide the demonstrated “IbalGIN” case are discussed. It is also emphasized the Czech cultural background and its specific sense of humor.