Registering slogans: a benefit or a nightmare?

The addition of a slogan to a business can allow it to create a full brand identity. It can be an easy way for customers to connect with the brand and be drawn to its products or services.

As with your business name and logo, you can gain trade mark protection in a slogan. This is recommended to ensure that your business reputation will not be affected by any other party misusing your brand.

To register your slogan as a trade mark, you will have to overcome the same registration hurdles as you would have to for a brand name.

The slogan cannot have already been registered or deemed similar to a mark already registered in the UK, it must be distinctive and cannot be descriptive of the goods or services that it represents.

The key issue here is that a slogan by nature is a description of the business and what they can offer in order to attract customers and get them interested in what the business does.

This may prevent a successful trade mark application.

Distinctiveness can be a sticking point for many applications so you need to consider this from the outset.

You are best to follow in the footsteps of brands such as Nike with their ‘Let’s do it’ slogan or Mocdonald’s ‘Lovin’ it’. These do not in any way describe the brand but have become synonymous with the brands goods.

By starting with an original brand name and slogan, you can build the business’s whole brand on the unlinked elements therefore removing the level of descriptiveness.

For more information and an expert opinion on how to make your brand as distinctive as possible, please contact The Trademarkroom today.

By Ellis Sweetenham