Meloni seeks trademark protection for her voice against AI fakes

Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has applied to the EU’s intellectual-property office to register a four-second recording of her voice as a sound trademark. She says it would add a legal tool against AI-generated audio that imitates her and can make a fabricated message sound authentic. The application is still under examination, and a trademark would not stop voice-cloning technology; it could instead help her challenge uses that infringe the mark, as companies do with protected brands. The filing is notable as what the Financial Times described as the first such move by a major politician, treating a political leader’s voice as a brand asset in the AI era.