The world’s smallest nation, the Vatican City, has a population of about 900. They country is, however, a member of WIPO. Their copyright laws are available here: http://www.copyright-watch.org/state/va
Concerned with commercialization of the Pontifical character, the Vatican has decided to pass a special copyright law to prevent others from referring to goods and services as being Papal. They apparently seek to establish and safeguard the name, image and any symbols of the Pope as being expressly for official use of the Holy See unless otherwise authorized.
See http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/holy_see_declares_unique_copyright_on_papal_figure/
We find this development interesting. A lex specialis is always interesting. I’d have thought a trademark would be more appropriate. For some reason however, the Holy See is not a member of the Madrid protocol.
There were a couple of trademark registrations for Pope in Israel, but the files are closed. I couldn’t find any registrations including the words pontifical or papal however. That said, despite rules governing ordre public, the mark Jesus Boat was considered allowable for a cruise ship on the Sea of Galilee.
I suspect that anything going beyond standard trademark rules that is introduced by the Holy See will not be enforceable elsewhere. We note that attempts to trademark Bobover Rebbe and Admor miBobov (lehavdil) in the US and Israel caused some controversy. Meanwhile, the Orthodox Union have successfully enforced the OU symbol against a petrol station using Trademark Law.
