Today's unexpected legal-historical discovery: the '"Anzac" (Restriction on Trade Use of Word) Act 1916'.

"...it shall not be lawful to use in connection with any trade, business, calling, or profession the word "Anzac," or any word closely resembling that word, without the authority of a Secretary of State, given on the request of the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia or of the Dominion of New Zealand"

Still in force!

The manual of trademark guidance notes there is special statutory protection for this, the Red Cross (etc), the Olympic/Paralympic symbols... and also the International Civil Defence sign, which I had no idea even existed.

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Update on this: the reason for the Act was even weirder than I assumed. api.parliament.uk/historic-han

"It is not right or fitting ... that we should have "Anzac soap," and an "Anzac Motor Company," ... Worst of all, everybody will recollect that the word "Anzac" was used in the "Anzac-on-Sea" case where it was certainly put to a very base and improper use."

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Turns out "New Anzac-on-Sea" was a resort town on the Sussex coast set up in 1916 by a developer who bought a few acres of fields, and ran a contest to select the name for his new town: the contest itself seemed to more or less be a way to sell plots of land in it. After an outcry (and prodded along by the Act) it got renamed "Peacehaven". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peacehav

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