Who owns hashtags and can you trademark your own?
When hashtags take off, brand recognition can be priceless. But can brands trademark a hashtag, and is it worth it? Chris Paver shares brand case studies and where the law stands on ownership.
Hashtags have become a powerful social media marketing weapon in the battle for consumer attention and brand engagement online.
Thanks to the indexing power of the lowly hash symbol (#) on social media, it is now common for hashtags to take centre stage in the development and execution of advertising campaigns as a tool that can place a brand at the centre of customer conversations.
But while marketers and brands have been effective early adopters of hashtags, the law, as always, has been slow to adapt.
In the world of intellectual property and marketing law, the hashtag phenomenon has numerous implications, raising interesting questions such as who ‘owns’ hashtags and how does the law help brands to protect them.
