Outrage as Welsh word for Love gets trademarked

Cariad: Welsh language advocates are outraged by the UK IPO's decision. Photo / Jackson David, Unsplash

Welsh speakers have expressed their anger at the decision to grant a company exclusive use for the word "cariad", meaning love.

Cariad was granted as a trademark to scented candles company Fizzy Foam Candles.

The word was submitted to Newport-based UK Intellectual Property Office for the exclusive right to name their candles after the concept. Other uses for the Cariad would not be the copyright of Fizzy Foam.

In the streets of Cardiff many said they were "digofaint" (or livid) about the decision.

Many words and concepts are protected from copyright. Words in common usage are said to belong to the public and cannot be owned by an individual or private company.

This is particularly true for words belonging to protected languages, such as Welsh. In Wales it has been given equal footing to English in the Welsh Language Act 1993.

"These words belong to everyone in Wales and no one has the right to attempt to possess them as property," said Welsh language advocate Efan ap Ifor. "This is outrageous," he said via Twitter.

Intellectual Property lawyer Jonty Gordon told the BBC he was surprised that the application was accepted.

Welsh is a protected language in the UK with equal status to English. Photo / Catrin Ellis, Unsplash

He said that companies have tried to copyright the world for 'Love' in English but it "has been rejected several times for several goods and services."

He said expected the decision was a "mistake" and had "slipped through" detection.

This isn't the first time a rogue IP ruling has upset public opinion and issues of language ownership.

In 2019 Air New Zealand dropped an application to trademark its inflight magazine Kia Ora after Māori intellectual property experts complained that the word was in common usage and belonged to te ao Māori.

However international IP law is extremely complicated to defend. The term Kia-Ora (with a hyphen) is under trademark by Schweppes in Australia and the United States.

Once granted, many companies will go to extreme lengths to protect their trademarks.

The New York Department of Economic Development which owns the "I ❤ NY" logo has issued over 3000 objections against imitators.