The Superintendence of Industry and Commerce refused registration of the trademark “Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria,” local media reported Thursday.
According to news website CM&, the application was filed by Maria Isabel Santos Cabalerro, Juana Manuela Marroquín Santos and Juan Sebastian Marroquín Santos, Escobar’s widow and children respectively who changed their names after settling in Argentina in the late 1990’s.
The three had requested the international recognition of the trademark for the purposes of education, training and recreation.
The Superintendent however, refused to register a trademark which bears the name of the most notorious drug lord in Colombia’s history. A man who is “associated with a cycle of violence which crossed Colombia in the eighties and nineties, leaving thousands of victims behind,” the Superintendent said through a press release.
The applicants alleged that the trademark “sought to convey messages that invite reflection of humanity, hoping to generate a moral consciousness and morality.”
In 2012, Sebastian Marroquín, the son of Escobar, created controversy by launching a line of t-shirts and other clothing emblazoned with the identity document of his father, his credit cards and a certificate of criminal record, among other documents.
In an interview in August 2012 in Buenos Aires, the son of Escobar said that his intention was to invite young people to “not repeat” the story of his father.
According to official estimates, Escobar’s Medellin cartel perpetrated 4,000 murders throughout the eighties and nineties.
The drug lord died at the hands of the public forces in December 1993, a year and a half after his escape from prison.
Sources
Niegan registro de marca ‘Pablo Escobar’ a viuda e hijos del capo (CM&)