Login
Meloni Seeks EU Trademark for Her Voice as AI Deepfake Threat Grows
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has applied to register her voice as an EU trademark, seeking an additional legal tool against artificial-intelligence systems capable of cloning politicians’ voices and producing convincing fake recordings.
Giorgia Meloni has applied to register her voice with the European Union Intellectual Property Office as governments and public figures look for new ways to counter increasingly convincing AI-generated deepfakes.
The Italian prime minister submitted a short audio recording in which she says “Io sono Giorgia Meloni” — “I am Giorgia Meloni” — to the EUIPO on Monday.
The four-second recording forms part of an application for a sound trademark intended to strengthen legal protection against unauthorised use of her voice.
The application filed with the EU intellectual-property system is currently listed as under examination. It is linked to categories including downloadable multimedia material, cultural activities and the organisation of political events.
Registration would not give Meloni ownership over every recording or imitation of her voice, nor would it automatically prevent AI systems from reproducing it.
It could, however, provide another legal basis for challenging certain commercial or misleading uses where the protected sound mark is employed without authorisation.
The distinction between a trademark and copyright is important in this case. Meloni has applied to protect a sound identifier through EU trademark law rather than to establish general copyright ownership over the natural characteristics of her voice.
Her application comes as voice-cloning technology becomes increasingly accessible.
Modern generative-AI systems can create convincing synthetic speech from relatively small samples of recorded audio. The technology is used legitimately for dubbing, accessibility and media production, but it can also be used for fraud, impersonation and political disinformation.
Meloni herself has previously been targeted by manipulated images and other deepfake material. She has also taken legal action in Italy over sexually explicit deepfake images created using her likeness.
The problem has acquired additional importance for politicians because synthetic recordings can be produced and circulated rapidly during election campaigns.
A false recording no longer requires sophisticated audio-editing equipment or extensive access to the target. Public figures provide large quantities of clean audio through speeches, television appearances, podcasts and social-media video — precisely the material needed to train voice-cloning systems.
The EU has already begun imposing specific transparency requirements on synthetic content.
EU Today reported in August that new provisions under the EU AI Act require certain AI-generated or manipulated audio, images and video to be marked in machine-readable form and impose disclosure obligations for deepfake material.
Those rules address transparency rather than ownership.
Trademark law potentially offers a different route by allowing an individual or organisation to claim rights over a specific sound used as a commercial or identifying mark.
Sound trademarks are not new. Companies have long registered jingles, tones and other distinctive audio signatures. What is unusual in Meloni’s application is the attempt by a serving head of government to use the system partly as protection against AI impersonation.
The phrase chosen for the application is itself closely associated with Meloni’s political identity.
“Io sono Giorgia” became widely recognised following a 2019 speech in which she described herself as a woman, mother, Italian and Christian. The phrase subsequently became the basis of online remixes before being adopted as the title of her autobiography.
Other performers have also sought stronger protection for their voices as generative AI improves.
Italian singer Giusy Ferreri has filed a similar application, while actors and musicians internationally have pressed governments and technology companies to prevent unauthorised voice cloning.
Meloni’s filing is unlikely on its own to settle the broader legal question of whether an individual can effectively control AI reproductions of his or her voice.
It does, however, illustrate how existing intellectual-property law is being tested against technology that can reproduce personal characteristics that were previously difficult to copy convincingly.
The EUIPO must now determine whether Meloni’s application satisfies the requirements for registration. Until that process is completed, the filing remains an application rather than an approved EU trademark.
