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“I imagine all of them have all kinds of business cards and stationery and other things that have the Liberal Party logo and everything on it. Some of them may just ditch it all and start fresh, and others may continue to use it until it runs out,” Prof. Scassa said, which could lead to conflict. “There may be things like that that come up along the way … It will be interesting to see.”

It it not likely though, she said, and would probably fail. Case law on this is usually in the context of “passing off” litigation — that is, passing something off as something it is not — which is the tort you would claim if you do not have a registered trademark.

‘We remain proud members of the Liberal party’

In 1987, for example, a candidate in the former Toronto riding of Yorkview posted signs calling himself “A Trudeau Liberal” and the official Ontario Liberal Party candidate tried to force him to take them down. This failed, a judge ruled, because electoral campaigning is “absolutely unregulated by statute… There is no legislation in Ontario regulating the use of political designations or party names.”

The upshot is that political fights do not usually get far in trademark court.

“The Trademarks Act is concerned with the prevention of confusion in the marketplace… for anything outside of the ‘marketplace’, the Act really has no application,” said Emir Crowne, associate professor of law the University of Windsor and a trademark agent.

The general rule, he said, is that you cannot register a trademark for something descriptive (he gave the example of “cold ice-cream.”) There is an exception for secondary meanings (for example, “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.”) But in general, he said, the fact that there are multiple Liberal parties in the country and around the world “would suggest that the term ‘Liberal’ is descriptive of one’s political affiliation and therefore not subject to ownership by any one person.”

National Post

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