Can You Trademark a Phrase, Slogan, or Saying?

Yes, you can trademark a phrase if it successfully identifies your brand and makes you stand apart from the competition (and that’s still up to USPTO to decide). For example, slogans like “Just Do It” and “Don’t Leave Home Without It” have been registered because they uniquely identify a specific brand in the minds of consumers, but have no direct correlation or describe the actual product. When registering, phrases are a bit easier to make distinct, but you’ll still need to check if there’s a similar phrase already in use through the USPTO’s and WIPO’s databases.

What Phrase Trademark Protection Gives You

Registering a phrase as a trademark gives you the exclusive right to use that phrase for branding the specific goods and services listed in your registration. Anyone who uses the same phrase, or even a similar one, in a way that could mislead consumers about the source of competing goods or services would then be infringing your mark. You can send cease-and-desist letters with legal weight, seek injunctions, and pursue damages in federal court to protect your brand.

Notably, that doesn’t make the words in the phrase exclusively yours, usable in any context. Nike’s “Just Do It” doesn’t stop a motivational speaker from using the phrase in a speech, or a headline writer from using it in an unrelated piece. The protection is specifically against confusing use in commerce for competing goods or services.

Words, Phrases, and Slogans — Is There a Legal Difference?

Legally, the same rules apply whether you’re trying to trademark a word, a phrase, or a longer slogan. The USPTO puts them all in the same category. What matters in every case is whether the wording functions to uniquely make your audience aware of your brand, and if someone hearing the words instantly brings your brand to mind.

In practice, single invented words (Xerox, Kodak, Google) tend to be the easiest to register because they have no prior meaning and therefore don’t describe anything. Ordinary words used in unexpected ways (like Apple for computers) are registrable but might need to be proven to be unique.

Phrases and slogans are evaluated by the same standard, but because they are promotional content, they may face more scrutiny. A phrase that is essentially an advertising boast (“The Best Coffee in Town”) will fail to get trademarked because it describes a quality of the product or service.

What Makes a Phrase Trademarkable

The USPTO evaluates all trademark applications on a spectrum of distinctiveness. Where a phrase falls on that spectrum determines whether it can be registered and how strong the resulting protection will be.

Category	What it means	Example
Fanciful	Invented words with no prior meaning	“Kodak” or “Xerox” — strongest possible protection
Arbitrary	Real words used in an unrelated context	“Apple” for computers — very strong protection
Suggestive	Hints at a quality without directly describing it	“Netflix” for streaming — registrable without secondary meaning
Descriptive	Directly describes a feature or quality of the goods	“Cold and Creamy” for ice cream — requires proof of acquired distinctiveness
Generic	The common name for the category of goods or services	“The Burger Place” for a burger restaurant — not registrable

Most slogans and phrases land around the three “middle” categories, which are where the real legal judgment calls happen. A suggestive phrase requires some mental leap to connect it to the goods or services. A descriptive phrase can only be registered if you can demonstrate that the phrase has acquired secondary meaning (more specifically, the brand).

This is a higher bar than it sounds. Secondary meaning typically requires years of continuous use, substantial marketing expenditure, and evidence such as consumer surveys or declarations showing the association. A phrase you’ve used for six months, even heavily, will rarely qualify.

Why the USPTO Refuses Some Phrases

The most common refusal for phrase and slogan applications is that the wording is “primarily merely descriptive.” In other words, the phrase describes a feature, quality, function, or purpose of the goods or services rather than identifying their branding. “Fast Delivery” for a courier service, “Natural Ingredients” for a skincare brand, or “Trusted Advice” for a financial service are all examples of phrases that merely describe the product offered rather than distinguish it. Competitors selling the same type of product need to be able to make those same claims, so no one can monopolize the wording.

The second most common ground for refusal is similarity with existing marks. The USPTO examines pending applications against all live registered marks for confusingly similar wording used in the same or related goods and services categories. If your slogan sounds like, looks like, or has the same commercial impression as a registered mark, the USPTO can refuse your application. This is why a clearance search before filing is so important. It allows you to discover a conflict before you’ve built a campaign around a phrase.

The USPTO also refuses phrases that function as “ornamental” or “informational” rather than as brand identifiers. A phrase printed across the chest of a T-shirt, displayed as a decorative element, or used as a general motivational statement in advertising, may not be recognized as a source identifier by consumers. The USPTO’s guide on ornamental refusals explains how the office distinguishes between decorative use and trademark use, and how applicants can overcome them.

Famous Trademarked Phrases — What Made Them Work

In most examples, you’ll see a similarity in how the phrases correlate (or don’t) to the product or service. That’s precisely because they’re suggestive rather than descriptive.

“Just Do It” (Nike) works because the phrase has no inherent connection to athletic footwear or apparel. It simply projects an attitude. Decades of consistent use in advertising created an association in consumers’ minds so strong that hearing the phrase triggers brand recognition before product recognition.

“Don’t Leave Home Without It” (American Express) works for the same reason: the phrase implies reliability and necessity without describing what a credit card actually does.

“Finger Lickin’ Good” (KFC) does describe the quality of the eating experience, which means it would normally face a difficult path to registration. However, decades of exclusive association with the brand gave it sufficient secondary meaning to obtain protection.

For a look at how distinctiveness principles apply beyond conventional slogans, Protect.TM’s roundup of unusual trademarks that have actually been registered shows how far the concept of distinctiveness can stretch.

How to Check If a Phrase Is Already Taken

The USPTO’s TESS database (now integrated into the TSDR system) should be your starting point for any phrase clearance search. Search for your exact phrase, then search for the individual words in combination, then search for phonetically or conceptually similar alternatives. A registered mark doesn’t have to match your phrase word-for-word to block you, but just enough to create a likelihood of confusion in the relevant market.

USPTO records only capture registered and pending federal marks. They tell you nothing about businesses using similar phrases under common law (which still provides some protection), without registration. The real-world search is equally important. This means running the phrase through major search engines, looking for it on social media and marketplace platforms, and checking whether any brand has used a similar notion or paradigm to sell their services.

Protect.TM’s comprehensive trademark study covers this in full rather than just the exact-match database lookup. For a detailed explanation of what a thorough clearance process involves, see Protect.TM’s guide on how to check if a phrase is already trademarked.

How to Trademark a Phrase: Step by Step

Registering a phrase shouldn’t be any different from a “regular” trademark, so you can use our full guide to get started. Here is how the process should look.

1. Run the clearance search before beginning the filing process.
2. Choose the right filing basis. U.S. trademark applications can be filed either on a “use in commerce” basis or an “intent to use” basis. The former means you are already using the phrase for branding, while the latter reserves your priority date while you finalize your product launch. The intent-to-use route requires a follow-up Statement of Use filing once you begin commercial use, within the allowed window after the USPTO issues a Notice of Allowance.
3. Select the correct goods and services class, noting that trademark protection for a phrase is tied to the categories in which you file.
4. Submit the application and track its progress. The USPTO’s TMEP guide on slogan marks explains how examiners evaluate phrases during the examination process.
5. After filing, monitor the application status through TSDR. If the examiner raises an office action, you typically have three months to respond, with an option to extend. Missing that deadline results in abandonment.

How Much Does It Cost to Trademark a Phrase?

The USPTO’s base filing fee is currently $350 per class for an application. These fees are non-refundable regardless of outcome. If you file in three classes, the filing fees alone are $1,050 or more before any professional fees.

You will also be charged if you need to submit additional information in case you missed something, or if your trademark is particularly wordy (up to $500 more in fees).

Additionally, you can use professional trademark services to streamline the process by offloading the documentation to them. It adds to the cost but reduces the risk of a wasted filing.

Common Law vs. Federal Registration

Technically, you don’t need a federal registration to have some rights to a phrase. In the U.S., trademark rights come from actual use in commerce. If you’ve been using a slogan in connection with your goods or services, you have common law rights in the geographic markets where you trade. Those rights are enforceable, but they are limited to the area of actual use and are much more difficult to defend.

A federal registration expands those rights to give you the right to use the phrase for your branding anywhere in the country and prevents others from making similar ones, even if you don’t operate in all states.

Why Copyright Does Not Protect a Slogan

This is one of the most common misconceptions in brand protection. Copyright protects original creative works, like books, songs, photographs, software, and other expressions of authorship. Short phrases, slogans, taglines, and titles are specifically excluded from copyright protection, regardless of how creative or original they are.

The U.S. Copyright Office will not register a slogan, and copyright in a longer work does not extend to a catchphrase extracted from it. The only legal mechanism for protecting a phrase as a brand identifier is trademark registration. For a full breakdown of how these forms of IP protection can be used, see Protect.TM’s guide on trademark vs copyright.

How to Keep Your Registration Active

A trademark registration might look like a one-time deal, but it requires ongoing maintenance, active use in commerce, and consistent monitoring to retain its value.

Of these, continued use in commerce is the foundational requirement. A trademark that falls out of use for three consecutive years is presumed to be abandoned and can be challenged or cancelled. This means you have to use the phrase in branding and promotional content that actually aims to sell services or products. If you stop using the phrase for a period and then resume, document the gap and its cause, since you can declare an excusable non-use (due to business disruption beyond your control, for example) to prevent your claim on the phrase from lapsing.

Renewal filings must be tracked and filed on time. The Section 8 declaration is due between years five and six. The combined Sections 8 and 9 renewal is due every 10 years after that. Protect.TM’s trademark renewal service handles these and takes care of the associated deadlines so you can rest assured your trademark is as strong and well-maintained as possible.

Beyond this, you also need to ensure your trademark maintains its exclusivity. Set up alerts for your phrase on search engines, social media, and marketplace platforms. Watch for new trademark applications in your classes through the USPTO’s notification tools or a professional monitoring service. An infringer who grows into a recognizable brand while you do nothing becomes progressively harder and more expensive to stop.

Check your phrase before filing with a Protect.TM trademark study or run a quick trademark search now to see what’s already registered in your space.

FAQs

Can you trademark a phrase you didn’t invent?

In principle, yes, since trademark rights are not awarded based on who coined a phrase first, but on who first uses it in commerce as a brand identifier and who first files. The key caveat is that a phrase in widespread general use may be considered too common to function as a distinctive brand identifier.

What’s the difference between a phrase trademark and a copyright?

A trademark protects a phrase specifically when used as a brand identifier in commerce — to signal the source of goods or services. It requires registration (or at least use in commerce) and must be actively maintained and enforced. Copyright protects original creative works and arises automatically at creation, but it explicitly does not cover short phrases, slogans, or titles.

Can you trademark a common phrase if you use it for specific goods?

Sometimes. The further the phrase is from describing the nature or quality of your specific goods or services, the stronger the case for registration. The challenge is that the USPTO examines distinctiveness in the context of the specific goods and services you file for, not in isolation. A phrase that sounds creative and original may still be refused if it describes a quality of your particular product.

What happens to your phrase trademark if you stop using it?

A trademark that is no longer used in commerce is considered abandoned after three consecutive years of non-use, and it can be challenged or cancelled by another company that wants to use the same or similar wording. After three years of not using it, the burden is on the trademark owner to demonstrate that the non-use was due to circumstances beyond their control (excusable non-use) rather than intentional. If not, your only option is to try to revive the trademark or re-file it.