Intellectual Property And The Festival Of Halloween
Introduction
Halloween originated with the ‘Samahain’, an ancient Celtic festival. Around the eighth century, Pope Gregory III declared 1st November as the new year and 31st October as ‘Hallows Eve. Later this day came to be celebrated as Halloween. On Hallows Eve people wore costumes and lit bonfires to keep the ghosts at bay and prevent any misfortune they may cause. It was originally practiced in present Northern France, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.
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Talking about the contemporary scenario, the Halloween festival is being celebrated almost in every western nation. today as the end of October month approaches the market gets flooded with different kinds of Halloween-themed articles (consumable and non-consumable) and various Halloween-themed costumes. The symbol of this festival is a pumpkin curved into a scary human face shape and to add more vividity to it a burning candle is placed inside the pumpkin.
As time passed different customs unique to a particular place gained recognition and got added to the main festival and became part and partial of the Halloween festival. The most popular of all customs is a play used by kids called “trick or treat”. kids visit neighbour houses dressed in Halloween-themed costumes, which are designed to give a scary feeling, and ask them to give sweets by the phrase “trick or treat”. if the owners of the house fail to give sweets, kids play a trick.
Commercialism of Halloween
Halloween is a commercial festival in the USA, in the sense that during the period this festival continues the overall economic transaction shoots up. The market gets flooded with Halloween-themed costumes, and goods, and buyers rush up to purchase them. This hike in overall sales and purchases is what makes Halloween a commercialized festival.
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As companies and other vendors earn a considerable amount from this festival, they ramp up their production and also try to bring variety and innovation to the products that they sell, so that they can attract more buyers. The innovation includes new costume designs that make it look scarier and unique compared to others and also, they design or create new symbols that are capable of attributing to the Halloween festival and at the same time remain similar to, but not same to the human-faced carved Pumpkin. These innovations are which attract more and more buyers, which is guarantee their huge profits thus, they tried to use legal means available to protect their innovations, and ultimately, they came up with the idea to make it their exclusive property under Intellectual Property Law.
The sales figures as presented by the ‘National Retail Federation’ of the USA give quite a good reason for the Halloween being called a commercialized festival. The sales figure for 2020 shows a sale of a total of $ 8 Billion which in 2021 reached the figure of $ 10.1 Billion and in 2022 this figure was anticipated to breach that mark and reach $10.6 Billion.
Though it ought to be noted that Halloween is not the only festival that has been commercialized, there are many festivals around the world that can be referred to the same and the foremost example would be the ‘Dhanteras festival’ that is observed two days prior to “Deepawali”, especially in the northern part of India. On this festival, the overall economic transaction breaks all records and people prefer to buy gold ornaments, cars, and many other things on the same day.
Role of Intellectual Property during Halloween
Intellectual Property speaks to a person who creates or owns an invention, writing, designs, music and other works. Those people have an exclusive right over those created property and are called “Intellectual Property”. The property is called intellectual property as that property that has been created or brought into existence through someone’s intellect or intelligence.
During Halloween, the sale of different products and brands reaches a peak and in order to attract more and more buyers they bring new innovations and designs to the products that they sell. The creators of these innovations and designs need to protect them and keep them as exclusive property so that their profit could be guaranteed and here the role of Intellectual Property Law comes into existence. Intellectual Property Law does so by offering different tools for the same as Copyright, Patents, Trademarks, and Trade secrets. Using one of them creators can secure the exclusive right over the property and bring that property within the scope of Intellectual Property Law.
Intellectual Property Law during Halloween plays a dual role as first, it guarantees the exclusive use and possession of the intellectual property to the creator or the owner. Secondly, it makes sure that intellectual don’t get copied or faked and is brought to the buyer as an option or alternative to the intellectual property being protected under it. Though, this function is passive as the buyers and owner or creator of the intellectual property need to report the same to the legal agency responsible to enforce the Intellectual Property Law.
Protection of products intended for Halloween
It happens quite often and is a common practice to copy or imitate certain products, which are popular in the market, and to sell them to the buyer by offering them at relatively lower prices. This practice can also be traced to the Halloween festival where popular products are get imitated and circulated in the market which causes harm to the company and creator.
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The creators and corporates that are aware of this dishonest malpractice have to willingly resort to the means available under the Intellectual Property Law and gain in general all rights relating to the property registered and in particular the rights for a trademark or patent and also rights for an industrial design.
After the product gets registered, either under a patent, trademark, trade secret, or copyright, the owner or creator gains absolute rights to enjoy, sell, export, import, and deal with any other way that he desires to use that property. This right is exclusive and can only be exercised by the owner, any agent appointed by him under his direction, or any person to whom the owner or creator alienates such right.
Let’s see three items, that are related to Halloween, that have received patents:
- Halloween-themed costume
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Halloween-themed costumes are used by kids and adults for two separate purposes. The kids wear these costumes to visit neighbours and as for “trick or treat”. The adults use these costumes to participate in Halloween parties. Halloween costumes are usually scarier with different kinds of lighting embedded in them. Innovation has been made to make the costumes look scarier and more realistic as well as unique from others. Example. RCDs No. 002676171-0001
As per Google Patents, a total of 19,000 patents of costumes have been filed out of which 386 are patents filed in the USA.
- Jack-O-Lanterns & Candles
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As per the traditions that have been in practice for years, during Halloween all households decorate their households’ using candles and scary looking plastic skeletons and Jack-O-Lantern to give the house a horror look. This makes these items’ demand remain always at its peak and the no. of patents that have been filed in this field is also high. Example. RCDs No. 002430645-0001
As per Google Patents, a total of 10,200 patents have been filed around the world and a total of 3810 patents for candles have been filed around the world.
- Halloween candy
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The kids dressed in Halloween-themed costumes go around the neighbourhood asking for “trick or treat”. If they, receive the candy or other sweets they move to another house, or if not, they perform a trick on that particular property. The thing that makes them unique from other candies is the scary pictures that are depicted on them. Example. RCD No. 000625397-0002
As per Google Patents, the total number of patents that have been filed on candies is 171 out of which 161 patents have been filed alone in the USA.
Author: Neelam Prusty, a final year student of Madhusudan Law College, Odisha, in case of any queries please contact/write back to us at support@ipandlegalfilings.com or IP & Legal Filing.
Reference
https://www.wipo.int/pressroom/en/stories/halloween.html
https://spicyip.com/2014/11/spicy-ip-halloween-trivia-patents-and-the-spirits.html
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/wipo_how-much-intellectual-property-is-there-in-activity-6992828479029309441-megt/?originalSubdomain=py
