Single colour trademarks not only on the current czech market

Abstract

Post-modern global society is marked by a highly intense competition in which proper referencing is critical. Indeed, a competitive advantage is useless without a legally protected method of linking the undertaking to its products. This method par excellence takes the form of a trademark, which is both a referencing tool and an extremely valuable intangible asset. Each jurisdiction provides for the registration of trademarks and over time the registries have become densely filled, i.e. it is extremely difficult to find a new, attractive and universal sign able to be registered in several jurisdictions and thus become a global trademark understood and recognized world-wide. To address this issue linked to conventional trademarks, both the EU law and the Czech law newly explicitly allow unconventional trademarks, such as colours. The goal of this paper is very innovative and pioneering, namely to research primary and secondary data about single colour Czech trademark registrations and related trends and to provide indices to confirm or to reject the hypothesis that single colour trademarks are perceived both by the fields of law and economics as more than a viable option for referencing and marketing, as well as being an asset.