Answer
Can I trademark a phrase or slogan?
Lawyers call this: failure to function · 15 U.S.C. §§ 1051, 1052, 1127
Short answer
Yes, if buyers would read the phrase as a sign of who is selling, not just as a message. Many brand slogans are registered. A phrase that people already say, print and share on their own usually does not, however clever it is.
The application works like any other. The USPTO base fee is $350 for each class of goods or services, and more if you file before you are using the phrase.
What changes the answer
- Whether the phrase is already in common use
- If many unrelated people use the phrase on shirts, signs, posts and ads, buyers read it as the sentiment. The USPTO then refuses it as a widely used message, and more evidence of your own use does not fix that.
- Where the phrase appears on the product
- Large across the front of a shirt, a phrase tends to look like decoration. On a neck label, a hang tag or a consistent brand spot, it looks like a brand. The law calls the first problem ornamentation.
- Whether the phrase describes the product
- A slogan that just praises or describes what you sell, such as “the freshest coffee in town,” draws a descriptiveness refusal like any other descriptive wording.
- Whether you use it as a brand or as advertising copy
- A tagline buried in a paragraph of marketing text may read as information. The same line set apart and repeated with your products reads as a mark.
- Whether someone already registered something close
- A phrase faces the same likelihood-of-confusion check as a name. Search it the way you would search a business name.
The rule
A trademark identifies and distinguishes goods and indicates their source. 15 U.S.C. §§ 1051, 1052, 1127. A phrase registers only when it does that job. When it does not, the USPTO refuses it for failure to function as a mark.
The versions of that refusal differ in whether they can be fixed. A widely used message or merely informational matter may be incapable of registration at all. U.S. Pat. & Trademark Off., Trademark Manual of Examining Procedure § 1202.04 (May 2026) [hereinafter TMEP]. Ornamental matter can sometimes register with proof that buyers see it as a brand, or on the Supplemental Register. TMEP § 1202.03. A descriptive slogan is refused under 15 U.S.C. § 1052(e)(1) unless it has acquired distinctiveness under § 1052(f).
A registration also does not give you the words themselves. Others may still use them descriptively and in good faith to describe their own goods. 15 U.S.C. § 1115(b)(4). What you own is the phrase as a brand for the goods or services you list.
Go deeper
The guide sorts the failure-to-function refusals, explains which ones can be cured, and shows how the Board has read the evidence in this library’s decisions.
What to do next
Before you file, search the phrase in quotation marks on a general search engine and on the major marketplaces. If many unrelated sellers already print it on products, expect a refusal and consider a different phrase.
If the phrase looks like yours alone, put it where a brand goes: labels, tags, packaging, the product page next to the buy button. That use becomes your specimen, the sample that shows the USPTO how the phrase appears to buyers.
A distinctive slogan used in a brand position is a filing many owners handle themselves. A phrase that is also a popular saying, or one you mainly print as a design, is where an attorney’s read is worth paying for before you spend the filing fee.
If your phrase sits close to that line, Valet Law, PLLC can review how you use it and tell you whether it is likely to be read as a brand.
Attorney review is provided by Valet Law, PLLC, a law firm separate from Trademark Valet, LLC. Keep confidential facts out of public tools. Your first message to Valet Law should identify the parties and the general issue only. Wait until Valet Law confirms it can discuss the matter before sending confidential details.
Who checked this
Reviewed and approved by Brandon Leavitt on 2026-10-02.
General information about how trademark law works. It is not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not make anyone your lawyer.