Many of our culture’s best known and most powerful symbols are trademarks. Producers of consumer goods and services invest enormous amounts of money in order to popularize their trademarks. Due to their reputation and fame, well-known trademarks have presented an inviting target for parodists.

Parody by its nature is a derivative and create form of expression; its defining characteristic is that it incorporates some recognizable features of its object while altering other features to ridicule the object and achieve a humorous or provocative effect. However, this freedom of expression infringes the property rights of the trademark owner, resulting in a conflict between two different fundamental rights. This raises the question of which fundamental right triumphs over the other and how the courts balance parodies under the current trademark system.

This paper attempts to answer this question and identify how the current EU trademark system deals with this conflict. As such, this thesis discusses the fundamental concepts such as freedom of expression and right to property, examines the background of the law, the actual legal framework of the EU, and the societal values of parodies. This paper also analyzes how US trademark law strikes a balance between parodies and trademarks, and what mechanisms the Courts can utilize to protect parodies. This is relevant because it provides an understanding of what EU Courts could implement to provide adequate protection to parodies and freedom of expression in trademark disputes.