According to information from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the law
firm Árnason Faktor ehf. was paid 5.3 million ISK in tax money to
protect the word “Iceland” as a trademark. Specifically, to prevent private parties from copyrighting the word “Iceland” and thereby preventing others for using it. “Iceland” has apparently been on the market since 2004, and is also the name of a popular store chain in the UK.
All told, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spent 29,415,432 ISK on expenditures from May 2007 to the end of last January.