The request has been forwarded to the European Union Intellectual Property Office (Euipo). Objective: to avoid “confusing unsuspecting travellers”
It may be true that the world is small, but sometimes it can lack originality from a toponymic point of view. Let’s take the word «Sweden”: obvious, at least in Italy, to immediately trace it back to the Scandinavian country. However its English translation – Sweden – is also the name of six cities or locations in the United States (in Georgia, Arkansas, Missouri, South Carolina, Pennsylvania and New York respectively), as well as a small settlement in Indonesia. Seemingly impossible to get confused, however in the times of digital globalization it is always better not to take anything for granted. Because of this Visit Swedenthe agency that promotes tourism on behalf of Stockholm, officially asked theEuropean Union Intellectual Property Office (Euipo) to register the trademark «Sweden».
The survey
At the basis of the initiative – we learn from the organization’s website – is a recent survey conducted by Visit Sweden which revealed that «almost half of travelers (45%) comes across the same place names when planning a trip and a surprising 8% he confessed that he even ended up in the wrong place.” The declared objective is therefore to «protect the name from international duplicates that could confuse unsuspecting travellers who want to know the original Sweden.”
Web marketing gimmick
Since it is a move defined by its own promoters «bold (and a little cheeky)», it is difficult today to say anything about the EUIPO’s response. Meanwhile, Visit Sweden used the attempt to launch a new marketing campaign in the name of irony. A witness to this movie posted on YouTube on Monday 11 November and titled Visit the Original Sweden: «The luxurious four seasons (play on words with the well-known Four Seasons hotel chain, ndr)? We have them all – explains the narrator -. It’s only natural that the rest of the world wants to use our name and capitalize on our brand. It’s extremely flattering. But what if people visited the duplicates instead of the original? A lot of things would be lost.”
Potential chain effect
As the video itself reports, if the request is accepted, Sweden would become the first nation in the world to enjoy a protected brand of the same name as a tourist destination. At that point, however, potential would be created maxi chain effectas – we read in the Visit Sweden press release – «in the world there are many Germanys, dozens of Americas and 34 Londons». And what about theItalia? Again as a mere example, in the USA alone there are over twenty «Rome», more than thirty «Florence» and a scant dozen of «Naples». Then wanting to broaden the gaze, as he pointed out il Guardian in this way «theEstonia it might try to get a trademark to prevent people from confusing it with the asteroid 1541 Estonia.”
The case of Halland County
Beyond the witty (and mainly self-promotional) intent of the gimmick, looking at the story from another perspective, however, one wonders whether vice versa they should not be precisely the small realities that are called like the large ones to enjoy similar legal protections. Just to stay in Sweden, this is roughly the case of what happened two years ago at Halland Countywhich has become almost impossible to find on Google due to its (almost) homonymy with Manchester City’s Norwegian striker Erling Braut Haaland. «We will become a forgotten Atlantis – complained the local Tourism department –. The popularity of the football phenomenon, combined with the misspelling, is completely suffocating our online presence».
November 13, 2024 (modified November 13, 2024 | 3:58 pm)
