UK and Spain in EU Court quiz show battle

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) will put an end today to the controversy that has been dragging on since 2009 about who owns the brand ‘El Rosco’, which defines the final game of one of Spain’s most popular quiz shows, Pasapalabra.

The legal battle which will be decided in the European courts is between UK television format producer ITV and Malta-based company Good Services.

ITV created the television format The Alphabet Game which in Spain was called Pasapalabra and in Italy, the Einstein society called it Passaparola. Einstein named the final donut the ‘End Wheel’ and licenced this format to Good Services. Then Pasapalabra was broadcast on Telecinco and Good Services warned Mediaset, owner of the channel, that it was the owner of the final game. Mediaset broke the contract with ITV and in 2010 signed it with Good Services.

However, the Commercial Court number 6 of Madrid, in 2014, determined that the Pasapalabra format was from ITV and that the final game of ‘El Rosco’ could not be protected by intellectual property. After this, in 2020 ITV signed the contract with Atresmedia (owner of Antena 3) for the broadcast of Pasapalabra and Good Services sued Atresmedia. The Mercantile Court number 8 of Barcelona ruled in 2022 that Pasapalabra was from ITV and that ‘El Rosco’ was a constituent element of a ficho format that was not susceptible to intellectual property.

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