AVIS DE DROIT PROTECTION DES SIGNES NATIONAUX

ROYAUME-UNI
be “misleading or grossly offensive”; Trade Marks Act 1994, subsec. 4(2). There is no
reported jurisprudence as to the meaning of that restriction, but the authors of a leading
commentary consider 305 that it would apply if the goods, in respect of which it was sought to
register the trade mark, were not really manufactured in the jurisdiction whose flag was being
represented.
Representations of the British Royal Crown or Arms, or of any member of the British royal
family, or anything else that tends to suggest royal patronage, may not be registered as trade
marks without royal consent; Trade Marks Act 1994, subsec. 4(1).
Coats of Arms which have been granted by the Queen to any person may not be registered as
trade marks without the consent of the grantee; Trade Marks Act 1994, subsec. 4(4). Whether
Coats of Arms granted by the Queen and foreign arms may be used in the United Kingdom as
unregistered marks, or indeed at all, is a question that could not be answered without
extensive historical research. The issue 306 is not governed by legislation, or by the common
law, but at least in England by the last surviving element of English civil law, namely the law
of arms, as administered by the Court of Chivalry, which last sat in 1954.
(ii) Protection Against Use as Company or Business Names
Certain words may not be included in the registered name of a British company or in the
name used by any business being carried on in the United Kingdom, except by special
permission; Companies Act 1985, subpara. 26(2)(b) and Business Names Act 1985, subpara.
2(1)(b). A non-exhaustive list of such words has been established by the Company and
Business Names Regulations 1981 (as amended). Included in those words are several that
clearly indicate some kind of national connection: British, England, English, European, Great
Britain, International, Ireland, Irish, National, Scotland, Scottish, Sheffield, Wales, Welsh,
United Kingdom. In addition, no British company may be registered and no business may be
carried on in the United Kingdom under a name that is “likely to give the impression that the
company or business is connected in any way with Her Majesty’s Government”, with the
Scottish autonomous administration or with any British local government authority;
Companies Act 1985, subpara. 26(2)(a) and Business Names Act 1985, subpara. 2(1)(a).
(iii) Protection Against Other Commercial Use
The Trade Descriptions Act 1968 provides for the criminal prosecution of persons who use
false descriptions of goods in the course of trade. Legislation having essentially the same
purpose of protecting consumers from false claims about goods has been in force in England
and Wales since 1862. The main criminal offences are those of applying a false trade
description to goods and of offering or actually supplying goods to which a false trade
description applies; Trade Descriptions Act 1968, subsec. 1(1). The concept of “applying” a
trade description has been adopted in order to encompass descriptions which are physically
part of or affixed to goods, descriptions that appear on packaging or supports in or on which
goods are supplied and descriptions in advertisements of the goods. Subsecs. 5(1) and (2)
clarify, as regards advertisements, that statements which generally refer to a class of goods
305
Kerly’s Law of Trade Marks and Trade Names, op. cit, p. 219, para. 8-226.
306
Refer to Halsbury’s Laws of England, op. cit, Vol. 35 , Title “Peerages and Dignities”, paras. 916 and
970 et seq.
195