The trademark system is designed to reward early action through the filing of an application.
Bulgaria is in euphoria after DARA's victory with "Bangaranga" at Eurovision 2026. But while the fans were singing and dancing, a number of entrepreneurs were busy with something altogether different – filing applications to register "Bangaranga" as a trademark. The case quickly drew media attention and set off a wave of commentary and legal opinion, much of it laced with misconceptions. That makes it worth bringing some clarity to the matter, above all to raise awareness in the field of intellectual property – which would, in turn, raise the level of protection these intangible assets receive.
The trademark registration system in continental Europe rests on a single core principle: the right belongs to whoever files first. Intellectual property offices — whether the Patent Office of the Republic of Bulgaria or the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) – do not examine of their own initiative whether a new application infringes someone's earlier registered or unregistered rights. That responsibility falls entirely on the rights holders. They are the ones who must watch the market and file timely oppositions. The principle is plain: market self-regulation. If you know you want trademark protection, act in time. To know and yet do nothing is a risk whose consequences the law does not mitigate.
In this case, the applications for "Bangaranga" were filed in the hours and days after DARA won. The fact is that, at that moment, neither the artist nor the producers held a registered mark. That does not mean they have no protectable rights, but it does mean their position – fair as it may be – is not as comfortable as the public conversation suggests.
As their public statements make clear, one of the defensive arguments the producers are leaning on is copyright protection over the title "Bangaranga" itself, along with the song's other elements. The instinct to reach for such protection is understandable, but the Court of Justice of the European Union has been consistent and unequivocal on the point.
Under the settled case law of the CJEU, copyright protection exists only for works that amount to their author's "own intellectual creation". The work must reflect the author's free and creative choices in a manner original enough to set it apart from everything else. That is the standard laid down in Infopaq International v Danske DagbladesForening (C-5/08) and reaffirmed many times since. A single word, or a very short phrase, rarely clears this bar, because it leaves too little room for creative individuality to show.
There is a second, more specific problem: "Bangaranga" was not coined from nothing. Online research suggests the word derives from a Jamaican patois term meaning "mess", "riot", or "commotion". It gained wide currency among a generation of children through the 1991 film Hook, and later settled into pop culture for good. If "Bangaranga" is no more than a lightly adapted version of an existing word, the originality argument grows weaker still. Linguistic closeness to an existing dictionary entry is no barrier to musical success, but it is a barrier to a successful copyright claim.
There is also the option of relying on an unregistered earlier mark. The EU Trade Mark Regulation (Regulation 2017/1001) permits opposition on the basis of a sign used in the course of trade, provided national law entitles the proprietor to prohibit the use of a later identical or similar mark. Bulgarian law offers that route in Article 12(4) of the Trademarks and Geographical Indications Act (TGIA).
The difficulty lies in having to prove genuine use of the sign in the course of trade — not mere fame as a song title, but actual functioning as a distinctive sign for goods or services. There is a real difference between the popularity of a title and its use as a trademark. The song "Bangaranga" is well known, but whether the team behind it offered goods or services specifically under that name, in a way consumers would read as a mark within the statutory definition rather than simply as a title, is a question difficult to answer with confidence.
Bad faith in filing a trademark application is a ground for declaring the mark invalid under Article 59(1)(b) of the EU Trade Mark Regulation. The media keep citing the case of the footballer Neymar, where a Spanish trader filed for the mark "Neymar" across various goods and services and was then successfully challenged (Case T-795/17). The example fits, but it should not be transposed automatically.
In Lindt v Hauswirth (C-529/07), the CJEU made clear that bad faith presupposes a dishonest intention on the applicant's part – for instance, knowing that another person already uses a given sign, coupled with an intention to push them out of the market or to ride unfairly on the reputation they have built. In the Neymar case, it is fairly easy to show that the applicant knew of the world-famous footballer and meant to trade on his personal and uniquely recognisable name.
"Bangaranga" presents a different problem. The applications concern a word, not someone else's name. What must be proven is that the intention is dishonest, not merely opportunistic. Opportunism on its own is not bad faith in the legal sense. The CJEU's case law is well settled that mere knowledge of earlier use does not suffice – a dishonest intention is required, and that is rarely easy to establish.
The burden of proof rests with the party alleging bad faith, and success in such cases is never assured. The CJEU's case law requires that all relevant factors connected with the case, and existing at the moment the application to register the sign was filed, be taken into account – in particular: that the applicant knows, or must know, that a third party is using an identical or similar sign for an identical or similar good or service that is liable to be confused with the sign sought to be registered; the applicant's intention to prevent that third party from using such a sign; and the degree of legal protection enjoyed by both the third party's sign and the sign for which registration is sought.
Equally telling is the wave of applications to register "COVID", "COVID-19" and "Brexit" as trademarks before EUIPO – the first immediately after the pandemic broke out, the second after the 2016 referendum. Most of these were refused not on the ground of bad faith, but because the signs were descriptive – a vivid illustration of why bad faith, as a standalone ground, is hard to prove in practice, and why intellectual property offices prefer to fall back on surer procedural tools.
At the national level, bad faith is likewise a valid argument, though after the latest amendments to the TGIA in March of this year, the regime is, to put it mildly, intricate. On the one hand, unlike the position at the EU level, in Bulgaria, bad faith has been introduced in Article 12(5) TGIA as a relative ground for refusing registration. At the same time, Article 36(1) item 2, read together with Article 36(4) TGIA, provides that any person may seek cancellation of a registration where the applicant acted in bad faith – which edges closer to the regime governing the absolute grounds of refusal. Not least, Article 12(11) TGIAnow allows bad faith to be established directly before the Patent Office, rather than only in contentious proceedings before the Sofia City Court. And yet the Ordinance on the drafting, filing and examination of oppositions currently in force (promulgated in State Gazette No 29/2022) still provides, in Article 12(11) item1, that where an opposition is filed on the basis of Article 12(5) TGIA, it must be accompanied by a court certificate of instituted proceedings or a final court judgment.
The "Bangaranga" case reminds us of something essential – a trademark is not acquired by right of success, talent, or effort expended. It is acquired by filing an application. The system is not unfair; it is simply built to reward acting early.
The team behind DARA deserve their win, and I hope it all resolves in their favour– all the more so since at least one of the applicants has already transferred their application to the artist's manager. But as an optimist who hopes this will not be the last such success, I think it important to note that the defensive arguments available right now are not airtight, and that timely, proactive action is decisive in this corner of the law. Not least, even if every application were duly and successfully challenged, doing so would cost considerable time and resources that could be put to more productive use.
The "Bangaranga" case is far from isolated. After the global success of songs like "Gangnam Style", "Despacito", "Macarena", "Baby Shark" and "Y.M.C.A.", third parties rushed to register the corresponding names as trademarks in various jurisdictions, leaving the genuine rights holders in a reactive and legally disadvantaged position. The same pattern shows up at Eurovision – the victories that propelled "Euphoria" and the band Måneskin to global fame were followed at once by opportunistic filings, which only confirms the rule that holds for every artist, producer, and entrepreneur alike: the mark must be cleared and registered before the world has heard of you.