Emma Raducanu trademark

Emma Raducanu’s historic win at the US Open raised a series of trademark considerations at the weekend. Following her success, experts predicted that the 18-year-old could become a “billion-dollar sports star” through future licensing and sponsorship deals. We spoke with a legal expert who said that brand protection must be an immediate priority to meet that potential. Delay would risk the loss of trademark rights and costly legal battles. As part of our reporting, we identified brand issues that had already arisen since the US Open final, including unauthorised merchandise, impersonation accounts on social media and domain name hijacking. We also noted the risk of third-party trademark applications and pointed to a UK trademark that had been filed for EMMA RADUCANU shortly after the match. We later confirmed that the application was not associated with the player and had been withdrawn shortly thereafter (as seen on the UKIPO website). Three days later, UK tabloid The Sun published an ‘exclusive’ revealing the same trademark application. It claimed that “lawyers raced to register her with trademark chiefs”, suggesting that the application had been made on the player’s behalf to “pave the way for her own cosmetics, perfumes, clothing and footwear lines”. This is not the case – as we reported days earlier. Nonetheless, the Sun article was picked up by other UK outlets, including the Daily Mail, Daily Star, Express, Metro and Unilad, over the following days, with virtually no new information added. A cursory look at the UK trademark application would have confirmed that it had been withdrawn. A check with the applicant or named representative would have confirmed the same. These are not the usual errors that can occur in articles about trademarks (eg, ‘patent’ or ‘copyright’ being used when referencing a trademark). Instead, this is incorrect news being spread about a trademark without even the most cursory checking – an unfortunate situation that could easily have been avoided.