The Trademark Helpline

Online selling can make a small brand visible very quickly. That is great for growth, but it also raises a protection question. A UK TM does not automatically protect your brand everywhere it is seen or sold. Your protection should match where your brand is actually going.

Coca-Cola has reportedly filed a trademark application for SPRICY in relation to soft drinks. That does not mean a launch is guaranteed. But filings can hint at names, products, ranges or campaigns being explored.

The name is not the whole trademark application. The goods and services matter too. Your classes and terms should reflect the business you are building now, but also where it may go next as a UK trademark can last 10 years. The wording matters more than most businesses realise.

Your own name can become a brand asset. The Jo Malone dispute shows why that matters. A name can identify a person, but in business it can also carry goodwill, reputation and customer recognition. If your name is part of the brand, know what you own.

You do not need to be a big brand to need trademark protection. If changing your name, logo or brand identity would cost you, it may already matter. Your website. Your email. Your packaging. Your socials. Your customer recognition. That is brand value.

When people recognise your brand, what are they recognising? The name? The logo? The style or overall look? A word mark and a logo mark do different things. Swipe through and ask yourself: What is the most distinctive part of your brand?

Competitor appearing when people search for your brand? The real question is what you can actually do about it. A registered trademark gives you a clearer starting point Protection does not stop at registration. How are you monitoring who else is using your brand online?

Experiencing a dip in enquiries, lead flow or conversions? It may not be your marketing. A competitor using Google Ads to bid on your brand name can appear above you when customers search for you. You built the trust. They intercept the search.

Behind every McDonald's is IP you never see: the systems that make it run. Genuinely new inventions can be protected by patents, which cover how something works, not how it looks. The catch: go public before you file, and you can lose the right to protect it at all.

You can spot a McDonald's from across the street before you read a word. That is trade dress, the look and feel of a brand. In the UK it is protected through trademarks, design rights and passing off. If it is distinctive enough to copy, it is worth protecting.

Around 380,000 UK tech trademarks do not cover AI. A trademark covers what your business did when you registered it. Move into AI, and it does not follow. That is why we plan around where a client is heading, not just where they are today.

You could spot a McDonald's fries carton with no logo on it. That is why the look of a product can be protected. Design marks cover the shape and appearance of your products and packaging, not just the name. What other packaging is so distinctive you would know it anywhere?

You know the McDonald's jingle. That is exactly why it is protected. Trademarks cover more than names and logos. Sounds, colours and shapes can be protected too, once they become distinctive. Most brands will never trademark a sound, but nearly all have a name worth protecting.

"I'm lovin' it." You read that in the rhythm, didn't you? That's the power of a tagline, a few words as recognisable as the logo. It can be protected as a trademark too, but only if it's distinctive enough. A tagline worth remembering is a tagline worth protecting.