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Taylor Swift has filed a legal action aimed at blocking a bedding company from getting a trademark on a logo featuring the name “Swift Home.”
In legal papers filed Wednesday, the superstar asked the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to reject a trademark registration sought by Cathay Home Inc., which applied last year for a logo featuring the “Swift Home” name in cursive script.
Lawyers for Taylor’s company, TAS Rights Management LLC, say the logo is too similar to her own signature logo – meaning it could “deceive and mislead” the public into thinking that the star “sponsors, approves of or endorses” the brand.
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“Consumers would immediately recognize the name “SWIFT” as identifying the Artist,” Taylor’s attorney, Rebecca Liebowitz of the law firm Venable LLP, writes in the filing, which was obtained by Billboard.
Such cases, filed at the PTO’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, are a common legal procedure for big brands like Nike or Apple or Wal-Mart, aimed at preventing similar-sounding names from being granted federal trademark protections. But many celebrities, including major music stars, also file them regularly to fend off copycats.
Over the past decade, Jay-Z has filed eight such cases. Nirvana has brought three of them, and Snoop Dogg has filed five more, including one against a company selling a product called “SnoopGuard.” Last year, Eminem launched such a case against an Australian beach umbrella brand called “Swim Shady,” claiming it was too similar to his “Slim Shady.”
Swift is no stranger to such cases either. Her company moved to block a “Swifty” trademark in 2017, and threatened to bring a case in 2022 against a company that wanted to register “Speak Now.” In 2024, her attorneys successfully blocked a “Taylor Talk” trademark.
Cathay Home, a textile company based in Manhattan, applied last fall to register the “Swift Home” logo as a federal trademark for blankets, pillows, towels and other similar products. Such a registration allows companies to stop others from using similar trademarks on related products – and to use the R symbol on their branding.
In asking the PTO to block the registration, Swift is not suing Cathay for damages or accusing the company of infringement. She is simply asserting that the company should not be able to claim its own trademark rights to the logo, given its similarities to her existing logo. Representatives for both Cathay and Swift did not immediately return requests for comment on Friday.