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Footballer Lionel Messi can trademark his name after a nine-year legal battle, the EU’s highest court ruled.
The Court of Justice of the European Union dismissed an appeal from the Spanish cycling company Massi and the EU’s intellectual property office, EUIPO.
The Barça footballer first applied for the trademark of his surname as a sportswear brand in 2011.
But Massi argued that the similarity between their logos would cause confusion.
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The European Court of Justice (ECJ) said that the reputation of the star player could be taken into account when weighing whether the public could distinguish the difference between the two brands.
In doing so, he upheld a 2018 EU General Court ruling that the footballer was too well known for confusion to arise.
Massi, who sells clothing and cycling equipment, was right in his initial challenge at the request of the Barça forward. But he lost when Lionel Messi appealed to the General Court, which ruled in his favor.
Messi, 33, who wears jersey number 10, has been crowned world soccer player of the year a record six times and is the highest paid soccer player in the world, according to Forbes. He puts his total earnings for 2020 at $ 126 million (£ 97 million).
In August, he made headlines by sending a fax to his club declaring his intention to leave.
But when Barcelona responded by insisting that any team hiring him would have to comply with a 700 million euro (624 million pound) buyout clause, he changed his mind and said he didn’t want to face the “club I love” on the pitch. .
