By: Jaime Israel Davila Gomez, Attorney
In Mexico, among the types of trademarks subject to registration and protection are the registered ones, which means, those that are made up of denominations of any kind, numbers and/or other writing signs in the Spanish language.
The latter would give the possibility that a name (denomination corresponding to a person) could be registered as a trademark for a specific service or product, however, the Industrial Property Law for clarity on the subject establishes that the proper name of a person can be registered as a trademark.
If a person wanted to register their name as a brand for a specific service or product, they would only have to make sure there is not a very similar or identical name already registered for that business, since this would prevent them from obtaining the registration. This type of registration is extremely important for people who are freelancers or whose name they have adopted as their trademark such is the case of trainers, artists, doctors and other professionals in the health sector, politicians, public figures, influencers, and a wide range of products and/or services. They can range from stylists and/or fashion designers to business advisers.
This does not mean that the records should be limited to the name of the person, as their brands can easily involve designs, drawings, their signatures (all of these brands mixed with figurative elements) as well as slogans or commercial notices.
Regarding names, it must be considered that in case you want to adopt the name of someone famous for a trademark related to the one that made that person famous, you would have to have their authorization to obtain the searched registration. In case the proper name of a person coincided with that of a famous person, but it was sought to be used for a business that has no conflict of interest with the famous person, the registration must be obtained without a problem.
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