#1384 1876 · Bass & Co · brewing
Camp Outside the Registry to Own Trademark No. 1
问题
Brands could be copied with impunity; proving ownership meant costly court fights over reputation, case by case.
背景
The Trade Marks Registration Act 1875 created Britain's first systematic, nationally centralized register of trademarks, and the registry opened on 1 January 1876. Bass & Co, brewing in Burton upon Trent since 1777, had identified its bottles with a red triangle since the 1850s.
On New Year's Eve 1875, by legend, a Bass representative camped outside through the freezing night to be first in line; amid a scuffle with other eager applicants, Bass secured marks 1, 2 and 3. The red triangle became Trade Mark No. 1, and the first two marks remain live on the register today.
换别人会怎么做
Keep trading on reputation and sue imitators case by case.
他们看到了什么
Reputation is valuable but fragile; registration is cheap and absolute. The first day a registry opens, accumulated goodwill converts into property — the queue outside the door is the market pricing that conversion.
那一手
Registration converts reputation into property: a mark on a national register is instantly checkable proof of ownership, replacing bespoke litigation about fame with a certificate. Bass grasped the flip the moment it became possible: the triangle it had spent decades making famous became, overnight, a state-backed asset, and being No. 1 itself became a story still retold 150 years later.
为什么管用
The triangle was already distinctive, instantly recognizable and decades old, so registration added enforcement power to existing fame; a central register makes ownership cheap to prove and infringement hard to deny.
值了多少
Bass registered marks 1, 2 and 3 on the registry's first day, 1 Jan 1876; No. 1 remains live, marked at its 150th anniversary.
什么时候会失灵
Registration protects the badge, not the business: a mark without a distinctive design or a fading product is a certificate, not an asset; and register-first races reward speed over thought when marks are chosen merely to squat.
后来呢
The template for trademark strategy, register early, register distinctive, and proof that a plain geometric mark can carry a brand into culture: Manet painted the bottle in 1882.
资料来源
- [1]The red triangle that made history: celebrating 150 years of UK Trade Mark no. 1UK Intellectual Property Office, 2026ipo.blog.gov.uk
- [2]Trade marks (research guide)The National Archives (UK), 2026nationalarchives.gov.uk