FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Can You Trademark Book Titles?
You wrote a book and now you want to know if you can trademark the title. I understand: you want to be ready for the success your book acquires, and you don’t want anyone to be able to republish it.
Your book is your intellectual property, and it’s important that you own all the different aspects of it once it’s out on the market. So you’re wondering, naturally, can you trademark the book title?
THINKING OF TRADEMARKING YOUR BRAND?
THINKING OF TRADEMARKING YOUR BRAND?
In the U.S., you cannot trademark the title of a book if that title is a standalone copy. You are required, unfortunately, to have several books under a saga title. That saga title can indeed be trademarked.
To give you an example, let’s reference The Hunger Games saga. The author would not be able to own the titles of the individual books, such as Mockingbird. There would, however, be a strong trademark on The Hunger Games title itself. For this reason, many authors in the U.S. plan to release their books in trilogies or sequences in order to maintain the trademark rights.
So, there you have it! As long as you have more than one book coming out in a series that is joined with a single title, you can create a trademark for the umbrella title.
Keep this in mind, however: in Canada, there is no such limitation! Even if you only have one book, the title of it can be trademarked. If you are publishing in Canada, you’re in luck!
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Disclaimer: Please note that this post and this video are not and are not intended as legal advice. Your situation may be different from the facts assumed in this post or video. Your reading this post or watching this video does not create a lawyer-client relationship between you and Trademark Factory International Inc., and you should not rely on this post or this video as the only source of information to make important decisions about your intellectual property.
