During the Holy Week, Seville (Spain) is about rain and emotion. No one that is a regular visitor to Seville during that period has remained either dry or indifferent to massive armies of penitents carpeting the sidewalks with candle wax, silent night-time processions, feverish sacred songs, and life-sized Virgin and Jesus icons slowly 'dancing' to the solemn march of brass bands. A tradition in which a trade mark case is as rare as a penitent with a bowler hat.  

However, a trade mark case came to our attention. It was in relation to a dispute between the brotherhoods of Nuestra Señora del Santo Rosario, Nuestro Padre Jesús de la Sentencia and María Santísima de la Esperanza Macarena of Seville (respectively, Our Lady of the Rosary, Our Father Jesus of the Judgment and Our Lady of Hope Macarena), and Blasphemia T-shirts about two Blasphemia designs.

In the first, Blasphemia used Madonna's album cover "Like a Virgin", replacing Madonna’s face with that of  the Virgin Macarena. The resulting image was of the Virgin Macarena lying in silk linen holding a bouquet and dressed with a seductive lace dress as was Madonna in the original photograph. The work also contained the title "Macarena Like a Virgin". That was too much for the Brotherhood of Our Lady of Hope Macarena, which also protested against  a second design. This one featured a "Macarena Hepburn", based on the more innocent-looking Katherine Hepburn in Blake Edwards' film titled "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and based on Capote's work. "Macarena Hepburn" depicted the Virgin wearing a traditional Spanish high comb and black dress, reclining on the floor and looking directly at the photographer.

"Shielding the icons [through trade mark registration] is as important as protecting them from fire" says one of the lawyers that represented the Brotherhood of Lady of Hope Macarena in Seville, and that was precisely what he used against Blasphemia T-shirt: a national trade mark registration consisting of the image of the Virgin Macarena and the infringement that the partial use of the Macarena image in T-shirts could amount to ex art. 34 Spanish Trade Mark Law 17/2001. The Courts had already confirmed the strength of the Macarena mark when in 2012 the Brotherhood opposed the registration of a design containing the face of the Virgin in a plate under art. 13.f Spanish Design Law 20/2003.

As far as we know, Blasphemia T-Shirts has withdrawn the designs in question from the catalogue, proving to be fearing creatures from the wrath of a trade mark owner...

("real" Virgin Macarena picture: @ Mflito at Wikipedia)