Paul the Octopus Trade Mark Applications

Added on : 27 July 2010
Filed under : Trade Marks

The 2010 World Cup in South Africa now seems like a distant memory (and perhaps best forgotten from an English football fan’s point of view). Rather oddly, the most memorable World Cup performance was not by any of the household names such as Messi, Ronaldo, Kaka or Rooney, but rather, it was Paul the Octopus who made all the headlines throughout the World Cup. The talismanic cephalopod correctly predicted every one of the match outcomes involving Germany, not to mention the winners of the final itself. Each time, he did this by opting to feast on a container of food adorned by one of the competing team’s national flags.

Paul attracted saturation media coverage in what was, to be honest, an otherwise uninteresting World Cup. The Telegraph reported that Kazakh bookmakers were "furious at Paul" and they blamed him for "their paltry World Cup profits", whereas the Chinese website Xinhuanet announced a forthcoming film entitled "Kill Paul Octopus". It will be opening in Chinese cinemas in August, apparently.

So what about trade marks? Well, predictably it had to happen. In the European Community, Mr Alessio Consorte has applied to register POLPO OCTOPUS PAUL for printed matter, clothing and toys, games and sporting articles. Paul’s “owners” have also decided to give it a go, German trade mark applications are now in place for OCTOPUS PAUL and KRAKE PAUL for a wide variety of goods and services in the name of Sea Life Deutschland GmbH. Maybe that’s a reason why they didn’t want to sell him to the Spanish, although his “DNA” is English! Watch out for the merchandising coming to a store near you, soon!

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