April 2019. Instagram, which has been owned by Facebook since 2012, has a striking logo for its app. So how has it protected this logo across the EU?

European trademarks registered by Instagram

Trademark registrations

Research by Chiever has found that Instagram in fact owns a number of European trademark rights to its logo. Especially interesting is that at the end of 2018, it registered a new trademark: a logo consisting solely of a coloured square. Clearly an attempt to extend the scope of its protection.

Sufficiently distinctive?

Will EUIPO accept this trademark?

We’ll be intrigued to see if the European Trademark Office accepts this trademark. Simple trademarks like this are usually refused due to their lack of distinctiveness. Instagram may however be able to provide convincing evidence that even this stripped-down logo has acquired distinctiveness and can therefore be recognised as a trademark after all.

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Each week, Chiever’s Instagram account features 2-3 amusing examples of striking trademarks, inventive copycats and interesting topical infringement disputes. Follow Chiever on Tr8marks.