Senchuk V. Acquisition of intellectual property rights to trademarks including official names of states.

The dissertation is devoted to the solution of a complex legal problem – to discover theoretical and practical approaches to including official names of states in designations, which are protected in accordance with international acts, the European and national legislation. The work is the first monographic research aimed at identifying and revealing features of legally protecting designations, which include official names of states; it offers theoretical approaches and formulates proposals for improving the national legislation in this aspect, taking into account the WIPO approaches as well as the European standards and the provisions of the Association Agreement with the EU. The study reveals the role of trademarks in implementing national branding and defines the relationship between national branding and the legal protection of commercial signs; there is given a general description of international legal approaches to protecting the official names of states and including them into designations, the WIPO practice on this issue is analyzed; legal principles of protecting the official names of states and their introduction into designations according to the legislation of Ukraine are studied; peculiarities of the procedure of granting legal protection to trademarks containing the names of states are determined; in the epistemological context, the trade mark reform in the European Union is revealed and the national and European practices concerning the legal protection of the names of states are investigated; prospects of legal protection of the official names of states are determined on the basis of the Association Agreement with the EU. The study highlighted the possibility of using the names of states in trade marks as an integral element of the state's sovereignty or the country’s good name and reputation. It is confirmed that the trademark, which may be associated with the name of the state, automatically acquires competitive advantages.