Ukraine’s bravery and daring in the face of Russian aggression marks a stark contrast with European – or at least EU – lethargy and disinclination to take sides. A recent spat over, of all things, European trade mark law is a case in point.

In early 2022, a soldier on the desolate Snake Island in the Black Sea famously added to Ukrainian folklore by greeting the Russian cruiser Moskva, which had come to take over the island, with the words ‘Russian warship, go f**k yourself’. This slogan quickly became hot merchandising property. Kyiv understandably decided to put to work to aid the war effort: it applied to register the phrase as a European trade mark, on the basis that if anyone should be allowed to profit from its use, it should. But their pleas fell on deaf ears. Although the Ukraine Defence Ministry has been doughtily fighting this corner for nearly two years, the European Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) in Spain has consistently rebuffed its efforts.

Could this be an opportunity for London to score a post-Brexit trick?

Why? The arguments from the cream of Europe’s intellectual property lawyers certainly haven’t lacked variety. They began in 2022 with a priggish suggestion that monetising the phrase was ‘contrary to accepted principles of morality’ because it sought to profit from what was ‘accepted to be a tragic event’ (that is, the invasion of Ukraine). This gave way shortly afterwards to an even more pompous complaint that Ukraine was seeking a European imprimatur for ‘vulgar language with an insulting sexual connotation,’ whose use as a trade mark ‘banalises the Russian invasion and uses the sign as merely a tool to sell merchandising goods such as jewels, toys, clothing, wallets, etc.’ (One might be forgiven for thinking that that was the object of all trade mark law; but let that pass.) In 2023, we had the latest change of tack. Being just a political slogan in universal use like ‘Je Suis Charlie’ or ‘Black Lives Matter,’ the phrase can’t be registered because it lacks ‘distinctiveness.’

All this makes one wonder. It’s possible, of course, that the serried ranks of Euro-apparatchiks in southern Spain have suddenly contracted a deep concern at the menace to morals in Paris and Berlin that comes from officially sanctioning the Ukrainian soldier’s vulgar statement of defiance. Have they taken to heart the dangers of allowing commonplace political slogans to become anyone’s exclusive property?

If so, it seems odd. This is not a commonplace political phrase on everyone’s lips like ‘Black lives matter’; it’s more like something eye-catching and exclusive, such as the ‘England’s Glory’ motif that used to appear on Bryant and May matchboxes. It’s also worth remembering that there is already a roaring trade Europe-wide in everything from T-shirts to mobile phone cases carrying the slogan, with no noticeable ill-effects on public morality in either Germany or France. This is a trade that exists precisely because anybody with an eye to a quick euro can currently use these words for free. If anything would improve the situation, it might actually be restricting its use to the benefit of a deserving cause.

Nor, for all the complaints of obscenity, have European trade mark lawyers been over-concerned in the recent past with the proliferation of the F-word. Just four years ago, the Court of Justice in Luxembourg smartly saw off a self-important effort to prevent the registration of the slogan Fack ju Göhte (read it with a German accent and you’ll see) by pointing out that mores had moved on and Europe had to move with them.

Has Europe quietly decided that this Ukrainian project needs to be killed once and for all? There’s plausibility in the idea that, having tested the political waters, bureaucrats concluded that registering a trademark like this might cause embarrassment on high with those who discreetly support keeping channels of communication with Moscow open with a view to restarting business as usual as soon as the unpleasantness in Ukraine has blown over. Far simpler, perhaps, to let sleeping dogs lie and leave entrepreneurs (some of whom might even be European) to make what they can out of this episode.

Could this be an opportunity for London to score a post-Brexit trick? Why not invite Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky to apply to register the trademark here? His Ukrainian mark is hardly more scabrous than the French Connection UK trademark FCUK, which we held could be registered in the UK nearly twenty years ago, despite arguments similar to those put forward in Alicante. And his case is undoubtedly a great deal more deserving. It might not generate quite as many sales for the Kyiv exchequer as it would in Europe, but it would still be a nice showing of solidarity with the underdog. Sometimes, even in the dry-as-dust area of trade mark law, it’s the thought that counts.