SPAIN Trends and Developments Contributed by: Mario Sol Muntañola, Sol Muntañola Abogados
phases: May 2025 and July 2026. And the Directive must be transposed before 9 December 2027, which has made it necessary to reform Spanish legislation. The special features of the designs allow them to enjoy a double protection. Not only do they have specific protection as a design, but if they meet the require- ments established in the Spanish Intellectual Property Law, they can also benefit from copyright protection. At the international level, in addition to the Paris Con- vention for the Protection of Industrial Property of 1883 and the Berne Convention of 1886 (regarding the dual protection of designs), Spain is a party to the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellec- tual Property Rights (TRIPS) of 1994, the 1925 Hague Agreement concerning the International Deposit of Designs, and, as a member of WIPO, the more recent Riyadh Treaty (RDLT), which seeks to simplify and har- monise design registration procedures at the interna- tional level. Personal rights What began as a very personal right, linked to the very essence of being human, has been surpassed by its economic potential, becoming a “thing” with great commercial potential. The right to one’s image (public- ity right) has an undeniable economic dimension, as rights-holders transfer and sell it at will. Consequently, from an intellectual property perspective, it is possible to consider the protection of this right as if it were an artistic expression or a tangible representation, without denying that its connection with the person remains unchanged. In Spain, the perception that the right to one’s own image requires specific protection is quite recent and so is the regulation. At the beginning of the last cen- tury, the Spanish Supreme Court issued its first rulings to protect this publicity right as something essential linked to the individual. However, it was not regulated as a fundamental right until the 1978 Constitution, shortly after the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights adopted by the United Nations Gen- eral Assembly in 1976.
From that moment on, and through the most powerful and protective legislative framework available in Spain – given that these are fundamental rights – Organic Law 1/1982 of 5 May regulated the fundamental rights to honour, privacy and personal image in a clear, direct and coherent way. This law has survived to the present day thanks to its coherence and flexibility, although it is now somewhat outdated; consequently, a draft law (approved by the Council of Ministers in January 2026) is currently underway. In any case, reform is neces- sary, given that the advancement of artificial intelli- gence poses a potential threat to personality rights that must be kept under legal scrutiny. And the recent Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 June 2024, which establishes harmonised rules on artificial intelligence and amends previous regulations, demands an update. Identity Identifying and distinguishing oneself are human aspi- rations as old as existence itself. Distinctive signs fulfil these and other functions, since in addition to identify- ing the commercial origin of our products or services and distinguishing them from identical or similar prod- ucts or services of others, they embody all the values that a product or service can offer. But we should not think only about brands. Trade names, stage names, designations of origin, etc, are signs through which people and things are made known to others. The regulation of distinctive signs evolved with the Industrial Property Law of 1929, which remained in force for more than half a century, until the more recent Trademark Law 32/1988, amended by the cur- rent Trademark Law 17/2001. This law represented a profound change, with the abolition of the old “Sign of Establishment”. Similarly, the “Trade Name” is defined and assimilated in service marks to the point of virtually disappearing, while “Domain Names” were introduced for the first time, although only to be recognised as a category of distinctive sign. It also addresses “Company Names”, a constant source of conflict with trade marks, prohibiting the granting of company names that could be confused with well- known trade marks, and instructing the legislator to enact a special law on the names of legal persons to ensure consistency in the system. The current law of 2001 retains the “Collective” and “Guaranteed” marks
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