Sweden is having an identity crisis, claiming that it needs a trademark to protect its unique status in a world that has eight other places called Sweden.
None of them, of course, are countries, but that hasn’t stopped Sweden the country from applying to the European Union Intellectual Property Office for a trademark on its name.
Tourism promoter VisitSweden has also posted a website where you can sign a petition in support of the application and also find how many other places in the world share the name of your town or country (There are, it turns out, 11 “New York” locations in the world, seven of them in the U.S.)
The idea is likely to find a sympathetic ear in countries with more serious confusions, such as Austria and Australia, or Switzerland and Swaziland (which changed its name to eSwatini to avoid the problem).
