Markenrechte an Kulturgütern: Möglichkeiten und Auswirkungen der markenspezifischen Kommodifizierung

For decades, it has been possible to observe that both private companies and public institutions have registered culturally significant assets as trademarks. Through registration and use as a trademark, the cultural asset is instrumentalized for commercial purposes, usually with a strong consumer focus. Victoria Voges examines whether trademark law, in its current form, grants overly far-reaching exclusive rights shaped by commercial interests. She demonstrates that the legal protection of cultural-asset trademarks has adverse effects on the cultural asset itself as well as on culture as a whole. These effects are not only undesirable from a perspective of cultural studies; legally enshrined culture-related principles-especially those deriving from the state's responsibility for culture-also argue against granting protection. Trademark law neither comprehensively prevents nor sufficiently limits the negative effects on the original cultural asset and on culture as a mechanism. Rather, the specific design of trademark law and developments observed in recent years lead to a more rapid devaluation of the cultural assets concerned. This cultural problem could most plausibly be addressed by integrating it into the ground for refusal based on a violation of public policy (§ 8(2) no. 5, alternative 1 MarkenG) and dealing with it on that basis. The state's responsibility for culture can be classified as a constitutional principle and thus as part of public policy. Methodologically, the author draws in particular on cultural-semiotic explanatory models.