Socialistic brands—implications for the trade mark system

Abstract

Socialistic brands is a term used by this author for a group of signs with peculiar and unique characteristics resulting from their shared historical pedigree. The notion of a brand should be understood broadly here, namely as encompassing all signs used to distinguish commodities offered during the period of socialism within a given territory belonging to the Socialist Bloc. Due to cultural, historical, political and geographical differences, each such territory has its own, unique socialistic brands.1 For decades, these signs were subject to particularities of socialist culture, socialist market rules and various inconsistent legal rules. It was not uncommon for a given socialistic brand to be used by multiple partially- or fully separate actors2 within each country. Further, markets of socialist countries were embedded in state ideology. Focused on rituals of production and with obsessive emphasis on physical and industrial labour,3 these markets allowed few intra-product alternatives for commodities which were typically offered under socialistic brands. The extremely limited end-user choice and general scarcity of goods were often the main reasons why consumers sought out products branded with these signs.4 Thanks to long-term use under such circumstances, socialistic brands today occupy a singular place in the collective memories of post-socialist societies.5 This observation pertains both to socialistic brands that were abandoned, either with the fall of communism in 1989 or thereafter, as well as brands that have remained in continuous use since the transformations these markets underwent with the fall of the Eastern Bloc.