How to look for records of... Intellectual property: trade marks, 1876-1938

2. What is a trade mark?

A trade mark registered in 1938 (catalogue reference BT 82/1383, design number 585505). Dekko manufactured cine cameras and projectors between the 1930s and 1950s.

A trade mark is the recognisable symbol of a specific manufacturer or brand, an assurance to consumers of the quality they can expect from a product as well as protection for the manufacturer against fraudulent copying of their products or use of their brand.

As the examples here and throughout the guide demonstrate, trade marks of the kind found in our collection are often characterized by one or more of the following features:

• a word written in a particular style and colour
• a made up word (for example, Lego or Vaseline)
  

  The trade mark for the women’s fashion label Marian Jacks, registered in 1938 (catalogue reference BT 82/1384, design number 585504).

• the use of a common word for a particular type of product, for example a soap called Sunlight registered by the company that became Lever Brothers
• a unique image
• a signature

3. What do we hold?

We hold tens of thousands of the original trade mark designs sent to Stationers’ Hall and the UK Patent Office for official registration – these designs are known as representations.

This trade mark for Real Yankee Relish was registered at the Patent Office in 1884 (catalogue reference BT 82/143, design number 35648).

Registers were used to record details of the designs and of the manufacturer or other company registering the trade mark – we hold just four of them plus two indexes. Most of the registers from this period were destroyed under section 6 of the ‘Public Records Act of 1958’.

From 1842 trade mark designs were registered at Stationers’ Hall, in the City of London, and from 1876, at the UK Patent Office. We hold records of trade marks registered at both places but they constitute separate collections.

Before the Trade Marks Registration Act of 1875 there had not been any legislation specifically covering trade marks; registration had taken place under copyright law. Records pre-dating this act, held at Stationers’ Hall, are therefore kept with the rest of our Copyright Office records – see our separate copyright records guide for advice on these records.

Some trade marks were ‘refused’ for a variety of reasons, and we hold copies of many of these refusals too.

To view the representations or registers you will need to either visit The National Archives at Kew or pay for copies to be sent to you.

4. Representations and how to locate them

4.1 About representations

A page from a book of representations registered in January 1884. The registration number for this trade mark is 35013 (stamped at the top of the page) and it was assigned to Class 24 (written below the image, to the left). The catalogue reference for the whole book of representations is BT 82/141.

From 1876 onwards, to use a design as a trade mark with the protection of the law, you had to send a representation of the design to the Patent Office for registration.

Representations came in various forms, many on paper, others printed on fabric, a few on other materials such as tin. Some are detailed painted images, others colourful or monochrome sketches and others just typed single words.

The designs were pasted into books and given a registration number, which was also recorded in the books alongside the designs. They were assigned a ‘class’, within which similar types of products were grouped. There were fifty classes altogether (see Appendix). Further information was occasionally recorded in these books of representations, sometimes at a later date, alongside the representations themselves. Additional details might include:

• details of the owner/manufacturer or agent including their names and addresses
• dates of later changes of ownership, with subsequent names and addresses
• whether the application was accepted or refused
• whether the registration had expired

Some entries contain no additional information at all, and have no corresponding register entry, making it difficult to identify the owner, manufacturer or agent.

4.2 Finding a specific representation

Trade mark registered in January 1884 (catalogue reference BT 82/141, design number 34958).

Finding a representation for a specific company is tricky unless you know what year the trade mark was registered, or are prepared to trawl through dozens, perhaps hundreds, of books of representations.

Start your search by consulting the Trade Mark Journal, first published, by the Patent Office, in 1876. There is a complete set at the British Library, on microfilm. The indexes allow you to search by applicant name, though if you don’t have the year of registration you may have to consult multiple indexes. From these journals you can ascertain the registration number and year.

Once you have a registration number or year, you can begin your search for representations held at The National Archives. Searches begin in our catalogue, in record series BT 82 (1876-1938) and BT 244 (cotton goods only, 1876-1922; see section 4.3).

The representations are listed in the catalogue in ranges of registration numbers and year, along with The National Archives document reference that you will need to request a viewing of any book of representations.

If you only know the registration number:

• Browse through BT 82 until you reach the range of numbers which include yours.

If you only know the date/year of registration:

• Search BT 82 by year; sort your search results by ‘Reference’ using the dropdown menu on the search results page; browse through the results until you reach the range of dates which include yours – if you only know the year of registration you will have to order multiple representation books

If you know the year of registration and the registration number:

• Search BT 82 by year; sort your search results by ‘Reference’ using the dropdown menu on the search results page; browse through the results until you reach the range of numbers which include yours.

The record series descriptions in the catalogue give useful administrative histories that will help you to understand how the records were created.

4.3 Finding a representation for a cotton trade mark

A trade mark for a cotton merchant, known as a cotton mark. This one was registered in 1881-1884 (catalogue reference BT 244/440, design number 27367).

Due to the importance of the cotton trade in Lancashire, the Act of 1875 made provision for the establishment of a branch of the Patent Office to be opened in Manchester in October 1876, to deal specifically with applications for Cotton Marks in classes 23, 24 and 25 (see Appendix). The Manchester office closed after the trade marks acts of 1938, when a single series of representations was resumed in London.

When registering a cotton mark, applicants were required to send one master representation and four copies. A number were held in the Manchester office and the others were forwarded to London for administrative purposes and for inclusion in the registers.

To find a representation for a cotton mark, search either in BT 82 (see section 4.2), which includes representations for cotton and non-cotton classes, or in BT 244 which contains representations of cotton marks registered in Manchester only. Applications received in Manchester were given an ‘M’ number for internal use only.

BT 244 is split into several subseries, one for each of the material classes covering cotton classes 23, 24 and 25 (see Appendix).

If you do not know the date or registration number of the trade mark you will first need to consult the Trade Marks Journals, held at the British Library (see 4.2).

If you know the date/year of registration, to locate a book of representations you should browse through the catalogue listings within the respective material class for the cotton product in question:

• Browse Class 23 representations from BT 244/1 to BT 244/44 (1876-1908)
• Browse Class 24 representations from BT 244/45 to BT 244/436 and BT 244/459-460 (numbers in this class begin with M)
• Browse Class 25 representations from BT 244/437 to BT 244/461 (1876-1920)
• BT 244/453-458 Class 24B (specimen Volumes) for Stripes, Borders, Words, Dogs and Foxes, Dragons heads and mermaids and lastly Coats of Arms.