February 27, 2017

Trump and his Trademarks

by Stites & Harbison, PLLC


The slogan "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN" are four simple words that nobody (except for maybe President Trump himself) could have predicted would help launch our new president into the White House. However, President Trump had been sitting on this slogan for years. In fact, on November 7, 2012, the day after Romney lost the election to Obama, Trump decided not only that he needed to run for President, but that he needed a brand to do so.

Sitting in his golden tower, he threw out a number of phrases, deciding on MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, and he immediately took his slogan to his attorneys to file an intent to use trademark application. At least, that is what he told the Washington Post. Now, every politico knows that Trump didn't coin this phrase. Ronald Reagan used "Make America Great Again" as his 1980 campaign slogan. He plastered it, much like Trump is did, on everything from buttons to posters and even included it in his acceptance speech.

Regardless, five days later, Trump filed an intent to use application, which allowed him to claim rights in the mark as of the date of filing the application. Once he actually started using the mark in commerce in "political action committee service, namely, promoting public awareness of political issues and fundraising in the field of politics," he was able to file a statement of use and allow the application to proceed to registration.

Note that Reagan did not claim rights in the mark. Trump just chalks this up to him being someone that understands marketing. In fact, Trump is the owner of more than 800 trademarks in over 80 countries.

Trump is already planning his 2020 slogan, though he can't quite decide whether he should use an ! or not at the end; to use KEEP AMERICA GREAT or KEEP AMERICA GREAT? That is the question. To give himself options, Trump filed applications for both:

Keep America Great
Keep America Great 1

This time around, Trump filed the applications for everything from bumper stickers to political campaign services to online social networking services.

Trump isn't the only one taking advantage of his MAKE AMERICA GREAT slogan. Countless other individuals have filed similar applications, trying to trade off what little goodwill President Trump has.

Even NFL Vince Young is jumping on the bandwagon and has filed an application for registration of "MAKE VINCE GREAT AGAIN". Apparently Young is trying to make a football comeback. Even though he has not taken a snap since the 2011 season, he has hired an agent, followed President Trump's branding lead, and has prepared a comeback campaign with these trademark applications:

Make Vince Great Again 1
Make Vince Great Again