Can i trademark a phrase uk [Deep Research]

Last updated : Sept 4, 2022

Written by : Manie Kermes

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Can a phrase be trademarked UK?

In principle, a slogan can be protected by registration as a trade mark as long as it's distinctive, it's not descriptive, nor generic and it's not already registered in your chosen classes. You can then prevent any other company using your slogan on certain goods and services.

Can phrases be trademarked?

Phrases can only be trademarked if the use is for commercial purposes, meaning the phrase is connected to selling goods or services. A person can't trademark a phrase just because they like itâ€”the phrase must be tied to a business.

What words Cannot be trademarked UK?

be offensive, for example contain swear words or pornographic images.
describe the goods or services it will relate to, for example the word 'cotton' cannot be a trade mark for a cotton textile company.
be misleading, for example use the word 'organic' for goods that are not organic.

Can a phrase be trademarked or copyrighted?

Only a phrase that is used for a commercial purpose may be trademarked. You can't trademark a phrase just because you like it and don't want anyone else to use it. You must be using the phrase or intending to use the phrase in connection with the sale of goods or services.

How do you copyright a phrase?

You can trademark a phrase at the local level by applying at your state trademark office. To trademark a phrase locally, you must already be using the phrase publicly. You can apply for a nationwide trademark with the USPTO. With the USPTO you can apply with the "intent to use."

What words can you not trademark?

Proper names or likenesses without consent from the person.
Generic terms, phrases, or the like.
Government symbols or insignia.
Vulgar or disparaging words or phrases.
The likeness of a U.S. President, former or current.
Immoral, deceptive, or scandalous words or symbols.
Sounds or short motifs.

Can you trademark a phrase on a T shirt?

Yes, you can trademark a t-shirt. You can trademark a name, logo, or slogan that appears on your t-shirts. You may register a trademark for any materials that identify and promote your particular goods and services. This information was provided by our founding attorney, Xavier Morales, Esq.

What does it cost to trademark a phrase?

If you have ever asked yourself how much does it cost to trademark a phrase, according to the current fee schedule on the USPTO, trademark registration fees cost $275 per mark per class. If you need an attorney's assistance, the cost averages around $1,000 to $2,000.

How do you tell if a phrase is trademarked?

You can search all applied-for and registered trademarks free of charge by using the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)'s Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS). If your mark includes a design element, you will have to search it by using a design code.

How much is a trademark UK?

It costs Â£170 to register a single trade mark in one class. It costs Â£50 for each additional class if you pay up front. If you're making a series application the first 2 versions of the trade mark are included in the fee. You then pay Â£50 for each additional version of your trade mark, up to a maximum total of 6.

Can you trademark a common word?

Common words and phrases can be trademarked if the person or company seeking the trademark can demonstrate that the phrase has acquired a distinctive secondary meaning apart from its original meaning. That secondary meaning must be one that identifies the phrase with a particular good or service.

How do trademarks Work UK?

In the UK, a trade mark registration gives the proprietor the exclusive right to use the registered trade mark on those goods or services for which it is registered. A registration also gives the owner the right to stop others from using confusingly similar marks for their goods or services.

Can you copyright a word or phrase?

You cannot obtain a copyright registration for one word. Copyright does not protect names, titles, slogans, or short phrases. A copyright only exists for original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression. A copyright protects literary, musical, artistic, and dramatic works.

How do I find out if a phrase is copyrighted?

Go to the official website of the United States Copyright Office to use its online "Public Catalog Search" for works copyrighted after 1978. Use the "Keyword" search field for phrases in copyright records. Surround the phrase with double quotation marks to search for the precise phrase.

Can I patent a saying?

While you can learn how to patent an idea here, unfortunately, it is not possible to patent a phrase. Instead, you can trademark a phrase by registering it with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

What happens if you use a trademarked word?

The law allows you to use a trademark without getting the owner's permission for: Informational use: You use it to editorialize or educate about a specific product or service. Comparison use: You use it as part of an accurate comparison between products or services.

How do you protect your slogan?

Go to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) website.
Check the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) database. Make sure the slogan isn't already registered in the same category.
Submit your trademark application. Pay the filing fee.

How do I trademark a phrase for free?

You can not register a trademark for free. However, you can establish something known as a "common law trademark" for free, simply by opening for business. The benefit of relying on common law trademark rights is that it's free, and you don't need to do any specific work filling out forms, etc.

How long does a trademark last?

A federal trademark lasts 10 years from the date of registration, with 10-year renewal terms. Between the fifth and sixth year after the registration date, the registrant must file an affidavit to state that the mark is still in use.

What is the cheapest way to trademark?

The basic cost to trademark a business name ranges from $225 to $600 per trademark class. This is the cost to submit your trademark application to the USPTO. The easiest and least expensive way to register your trademark is online, through the USPTO's Trademark Electronic Application System (TEAS).

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Comment by Leona Broyles

registration certificate please find enclose your trademark registration certificate for your trademark detailed above hey everyone thank you so much for clicking yet another video and welcome if you're new my name is teddy g and this channel is all about me taking you guys along for the journey with me as i build this cloning brand if you're new here please guys consider subscribing i upload videos twice weekly and i'm actually relatively consistent so please consider subscribing so i have a business mentor and when my mentor first came across my brand and its name the first thing he said to me was make sure you get that name and that logo trademarked and so i did and i did it successfully by myself no legal experience no experience in trademarking whatsoever i just went on the gov website and i did it myself and in this video i'm going to be talking to you guys about how i did that the process and all that kind of jazz so let's get into it so i trademarked my brand name and its logo using the gov website there's a whole host of things on that website it's a massive website and on there as well you can trademark and protect your intellectual property and it was a relatively simple process that i feel like anyone could do and for those of you that may not know what trademarking is it's basically a process that you can do in order to protect your intellectual property so you can protect the name of your brand you can protect your logos you can protect certain kinds of patents that sort of things so that's what trademarking is as a whole it cost me 170 pounds to do at the time which is pretty expensive especially when you're starting out but it's worth it in my opinion but i'm gonna touch on that later so the first thing i did when i wanted to actually trademark my brand name is i went onto the golf website and i searched to see whether there was any brands or companies out there that had a similar name especially in a similar class to the one that i was about to trademark in so on the golf website you can actually like see a whole database of all the different names and logos that have been registered for a trademark in the uk or have been attempted to be registered so when i made my search i searched over all the classes and a class is basically a description or scope of the goods or services that you're looking to trademark so for example class 25 is clothing so clothing headwear and footwear so when i did search over all the classes one trademark did actually come up and it did rattle me a little bit because i didn't understand why it came out because it didn't have anything similar to anything that i wanted to do and it was under the class of fitness and body cellulite and fitness gym or something along those lines and the company was actually based in france so this did rattle me a bit because i was thinking oh my gosh like why has this come up is the name similar i didn't quite understand but still i was like you know what i'm just gonna go ahead and do a bit more research and look into actually trademarking my brand name anyway despite the fact that something did actually come up the next thing i did was i got a little bit nosy so obviously i'm aware of a lot of different brands especially small brands from instagram from doing pop-ups and stuff like that and i actually went on there and i researched all those small brands to see whether they had actually trademarked their buy logo logo you know their band logo or their like brand name and quite a few that i knew came up and they had registered and all was scared and i was like oh my gosh so this is actually a thing that people do like i thought i was going in there just being you know like all like what i mean not knowing that this is actually a thing that most brands do but what then triggered my next line of research is when i researched one particular brand they had registered for a trademark but he had been rejected and i didn't even know like things like that could happen and i didn't know that on the database you will be able to see what trademarks have been rejected what trademarks have been submitted and withdrawn all of it stays on this public database so when i saw that that particular brand had been rejected it sparked me to do a bit more research into why trademarks get rejected because i was like i don't want to spend 170 pounds for my trademark to be rejected and i know that that 170 is non-refundable so that's the price of the application like once you make that application that money is gone it's gone i also wanted to make sure that what i was trademarking wasn't gonna potentially commit any of these offenses that might not let it qualify for trademarking so upon my research i'm gonna share with you guys some of the things that may potentially get a trademark rejected so obviously like the bait one would be if your trademark is too similar to another thing that's trademarked so that's the bait one obviously you can't trademark something that's already been trademarked you can't trademark something that isn't distinctive so it doesn't have a distinctive word it doesn't have a distinctive logo but i feel like this is a little bit ambiguous because what is distinctive so that is another reason why your trademark could get rejected and also you can't trademark something that would be in the best interest of the public to be able to use and i'm guessing this would be something along the lines of like you could trademark clothing for example because a lot of clothing brands call their clothing brand like the name of their brand and then clothing so then if you trademark clothing it means those people can't use clothing i believe that's what they mean by you can't trademark things that are in the best interest of the public to be able to use and also you can't trademark things that are too generic again really ambiguous but that's one of the things that came up when i done my research after i carried out that research i was pretty confident that my brand name and logo didn't commit any of these offenses so i did decide to proceed and go on so i know for a fact that if you're looking to trademark anything make sure you carry out as much research as possible especially if you're looking to do it yourself so once i was happy and i felt like i had enough information i went ahead and processed my application to register the name of my brand and two logos and i registered it under two classes so obviously the clothing class and i can't actually remember the other class i registered it under but you know it made sense to me why i registered it under another class as well so i completed the application in august of 2018 and typically it takes about four months or three to four months for them to review your application and in this time people can come along and like contest it so after going through that entire process my trademark was and the correct term is filed registered it was put on the register in november of 2018 so that was approximately three months so it took about three months for my trademark to be accepted and i've got this like thick thick like letter with al

Thanks for your comment Leona Broyles, have a nice day.
- Manie Kermes, Staff Member

Comment by Judson

hey guys I'm Mario an initial video I'm going to show you guys how to register a trademark online in the UK if you're someone who's sitting on the fence and considering whether to pay solicit or third-party service than don't honestly don't having been through the process of starting an online business which is involved to register in numerous trademarks I can confidently say this is going to be one of the most cost efficient tasks you'll do in the process I've seen lawyers and various online services charged in an absolute arm and a leg for registering a trademark in the UK with prices easily going up to six seven hundred quid the actual cost of registered trademark in the UK is a hundred and seventy pounds and the process takes less than thirty minutes so you can do the maths so there are two important decisions we need to make when submitting an application and they are a trademark class and trademark type I'll be explaining what they are and how to choose them throughout the video in a minute I'll be showing my screen with you and going through the trademark classes I'll then show you how to carry out effective research into live trademarks in order to help you choose your trademark type and minimize the chances of someone who already holds a similar trademark type and who holds a similar trademark to oppose your application in doing so you'll then be able to determine which trademark type is suitable for us and once we've established those two the trademark class and trademark type I've then walk you through the application process and then finally discuss the time scales involved the opposition period and what you can do if your application is opposed guys if you do enjoy the video then please like and subscribe to the channel so I can keep these videos come in and most importantly if you have any questions and drop them in the comment section below enjoy the video so assuming we've already chosen a name of our trademark in my case Featherstone the next thing we need to do is decide on the trademark class let's have a brief look at some of the trademark classes that are available to us you can either click on the link in the description of the video which I'll be sharing or you can simply google trademark classes UK and you can click on this link here general indication of goods and services and this should bring up all of the 45 classes so you've got classes 1 to 34 which should cover all goods and then you've got classes 35 to 45 which cover all services now each of these classes contains a list of pre-approved terms so there'll be hundreds sometimes thousands of pre-approved terms under each class which we'll see in a minute once we start filling the application it doesn't cost more to add more pre-approved terms you only pay 50 pounds per class per additional class so when I'm doing it I usually just cover every pre-approved term you know as opposed to sitting there picking choosing and picking because you're not paying any extra so all of these 45 classes should cover most goods and services however if you struggle to find your class then I've got a great recommendation it's an amazing tool a trademark class search tool on the EU IPO website you can either access it by following the link on the video's description or you can just google search EU IPO class assistance like I'll do now EU IPO new IPO and you can follow this top link here once you're on the page all you need to do is type in your product and it will tell you which class your product fits into of course if you have more than one product in more than one category then add all of the necessary categories you want to be registered under so I'm gonna type in leather handbags as an example and if I scroll down slightly I can see that handbags are listed on the class 18 you can also have a look on the left side of the screen over here for a brief description of the trademark class just to solidify your decision so we can hit see here it's classified under Goods class 18 and if it's under the luggage bags wallets and other carians category we can try another product right so now I've tried belts and we can see there's a few different types of belts which fit mostly into class ten but also class seven pops up quite a few times we can see orthopedic belts maternity belts and so on fit into class ten we've also got some fabric Belk tuxedo belts and suspenders in class 25 if you need more help deciding on which of these classes your product fits under you can use this classification guide on the left hand side and that will just break down the classes into a more detailed description so if we were for instance deciding between clocks 10 and 7 we can see class 7 fits into agriculture earthmoving construction oil and gas extraction mining equipment so that makes it clear what these are that's obviously a lift and an elevator belt and we can see in class 10 we've got physical therapy equipment and a fabric belt which will probably be your general clothing items there you go clothing guys this is a great tool to begin with but it doesn't cover every single product so if you're still struggling to find your trademark class then you should email the trademark classifications team at TM classification at IPO gov dot uk' and I'm sure they'll be more than happy to help it's important to know that each additional trademark class cost fifty quid on top of the application fee so just to clarify that the application fee of one hundred and seventy or two hundred pounds already includes one trademark clocks the extra 50 pounds fee will be applied to each additional class you add on top of the application so you can add as many classes as you'd like to application if you believe they will be required for your brand however adding more classes may increase the chance of being opposed if your brand expands into different categories or you need to add on a class onto your trademark for any other reason after you've submitted your application then you will need to go through the application process again and pay the application fee 170 quid plus and fifty pounds for additional classes so it's really important to capture all of the classes you think will apply to your brand in your first application and just to avoid paying that application fee again okay so once we have our class we can start our research now remember the purpose of the research is to identify whether there are similar trademarks in the same class as ours if there are then we can increase our chances of success by creating a unique logo containing the word we want to trademark if they aren't then we can assume that our chances of success of trademark in the word alone will be high enough and I'll discuss later on why trademark in a standalone word is more beneficial than trademark in a logo if possible so let's begin by going to the trademark register we can do this by searching search trademark on Google and you can click this top link here and then we can follow keyword phrase or image so we're going to be searching by keyword so once you're on to this page search for trademarks which is similar to yours simply by typin

Thanks Judson your participation is very much appreciated
- Manie Kermes

About the author

Manie Kermes

I've studied economic systems at Bethel University, Tennessee in McKenzie and I am an expert in statistical physics. I usually feel moody. My previous job was technical & scientific publications editor I held this position for 30 years, I love talking about yo-yoing and jet skiing. Huge fan of Peyton Sawyer I practice shuffleboard and collect coca-cola.

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