“Pablo Escobar” cannot be registered in the European Union as a trademark, a court ruled today, rejecting a request by a Puerto Rican company that wanted to use the name of notorious Colombian drug trafficker Pablo Escobar to sell various products and services in the EU .

The Court of Justice of the EU ruled in favor of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), which had refused to register this trademark on the grounds that it was “contrary to public order and morals”.

The company Escobar, based in the US territory of Puerto Rico and which wished to use the trademark “Pablo Escobar” in the EU, then appealed to the Court of Justice of the EU against the EUIPO’s decision.

The Court in Luxembourg in its decision noted that in essence the EUIPO had correctly justified the rejection of the company’s request, based in particular on the negative feeling that the name Escobar brings mainly to Spaniards, and to those in Europe who are more likely to they know the notorious trafficker.

Pablo Escobar, founder and boss of the Medellín cartel, who was killed by the police in 1993 in this Colombian city, “is considered in Spain as a symbol of organized crime and responsible for numerous crimes,” the Court noted.

Thus, the EUIPO was right to consider that there is a risk that the Spanish, and by extension all European consumers, will associate its name more with these “crimes and suffering” arising from drug trafficking “than with the possible good his actions in favor of the poor in Colombia,” as the company argued.

The request for registration of Pablo Escobar’s trademark by Escobar Inc. it dates back to 2021. The company had challenged the EUIPO’s refusal, seeing its refusal as a violation of the Colombian drug trafficker’s right to the presumption of innocence (he has never been criminally convicted).

The EU Court did not specify in today’s ruling what the “wide range of products and services” offered by this company includes.