Greta Thunberg seeks to trademark her name to stem misuse
FILE PHOTO: Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg speaks during a demonstration of the Fridays for Future movement in Lausanne, Switzerland January 17, 2020. REUTERS/Pierre Albouy/File Photo
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Teen climate activist Greta Thunberg said on Instagram on Wednesday she has applied to register her name and that of the Fridays For Future movement she founded in 2018, which has gone global and catapulted her to international fame.
The move would allow legal action against persons or companies trying to use her name or the movement’s which are not in line with its values, she said.
“I assure you, I and the other school strikers have absolutely no interests in trademarks. But unfortunately it needs to be done,” she said on the social network.
Thunberg said she had also applied to trademark “Skolstrejk for klimatet”, school strike for the climate in Swedish – the wording on the placard she has held since she started her one-person protest outside the Swedish parliament in 2018, for whih she missed school.
“My name and the #FridaysForFuture movement are constantly being used for commercial purposes without any consent whatsoever. It happens for instance in marketing, selling of products and people collecting money in my and the movement’s name,” she wrote on her Instagram account.
Thunberg, who took center stage at the Global Economic Forum in Davos this month, and her fellow young activists in the movement want politicians to listen to climate scientists and take action to curb global warming.
Reporting by Anna Ringstrom; Editing by Alexandra Hudson
