Taylor Swift bids to trademark ’Swiftmas’ and other phrases
In a bid to stop others from cashing in on her merchandise, Taylor Swift is trying to trademark the word ‘Swiftmas’, the word used by her fans for her random acts of kindness to them.
She submitted her request to the US Patent and Trademark Office on December 3.
Other phrases she’s trying to trademark in the US are “1989”, but only in the “stylised form” it appears on the cover artwork of her 1989 album.
These will protect her from words associated with her appearing on merchandise, printed materials, retail websites and concerts.
In January this year, she applied to trademark song lyrics associated with her as “this sick beat”, “party like it’s 1989”, “cause we never go out of style” and “nice to meet you, where you been?”
In this month’s application, she also added the song title Blank Space, the lyric “And I’ll write your name” and the phrase “A girl named girl” which is apparently the title of a forthcoming book.
She’s already successfully received trademark protection for her name, signature and initials.
Legal circles suggest that the singer might successfully protect her name and the artwork way of writing “1989” but not the song titles and phrases.
Swift officially finished her 1989 World Tour in Melbourne, where she played to 100,000 fans. The Australian tour, through Frontier Touring, shifted 250,000 tickets.
She described the entire tour, which began in May in Tokyo, as “the most beautiful chapter in our story so far.”
After an after-tour party / birthday celebrations at Frontier Touring chief Michael Gudinski’s mansion in Melbourne, she immediately returned to Los Angeles to celebrate her 26th birthday. Among the guests were boyfriend Calvin Harris, squelching rumours the pair had split up.
In the meantime, book publisher Simon & Schuster is crowdsourcing a Taylor Swift book, telling her story through magazine articles and other writings about her over the past ten years.
“Swifties” will be encouraged to play major roles in the book. Contests will be held to find a fan to edit the book (and be paid US$10,000), choose a title for the scrapbook-style book and design the cover.