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The Zest

How to trademark a Pilates or yoga studio name

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A Pilates, yoga or barre studio name is registered with the USPTO as a service mark in Class 41, the class for education, training and fitness classes. You file one application, pay a base fee of $350 for that class, and either show the name already in use advertising your classes or file on intent to use before you open. The filing is the easy part. Whether the name registers depends mostly on the name you picked.

Your studio name is a service mark

A trademark identifies goods. A service mark identifies services. The Lanham Act defines a service mark as a word, name, symbol or device used "to identify and distinguish the services of one person, including a unique service, from the services of others." Teaching a reformer class, leading a vinyasa flow or running a barre session is a service. So the name on your door, your booking app and your class schedule is a service mark. The application process is the same one used for trademarks, which is why most people call both trademarks.

Which class a studio files in

The international class schedule gives Class 41 the heading "Education; providing of training; entertainment; sporting and cultural activities." The Nice Classification's list of Class 41 services includes "conducting fitness classes," "gymnastic instruction," "health club services [health and fitness training]" and "coaching [training]." It also lists "arranging and conducting of workshops [training]" and "providing online videos, not downloadable," which covers the on-demand library many studios add.

Studios tend to grow into more than one class. The common ones:

  • Class 41 for group classes, private sessions, workshops, teacher trainings and streamed classes.
  • Class 25 for branded apparel you sell. Its heading is "Clothing, footwear, headwear."
  • Class 18 for tote bags and other carrying bags, under "luggage and carrying bags."

USPTO fees are charged per class, so each one you add is another $350 base fee. Writing your own description in the free-form text box instead of using the USPTO's ID Manual adds a $200 surcharge per class. I wrote about how classes work, and what they don't do, in the article on trademark classes.

What a strong studio name looks like

The USPTO sorts names along a scale. At the strong end are fanciful marks, which the Trademark Manual of Examining Procedure (TMEP) describes as terms "invented for the sole purpose of functioning as a trademark or service mark." Next are arbitrary marks: ordinary words that, used for your services, "do not suggest or describe a significant ingredient, quality, or characteristic" of them. Then suggestive marks, which "require imagination, thought, or perception" to connect to what you offer. Below those are descriptive terms, and at the bottom are generic terms.

Here is the part that surprises studio owners. The names that feel the most on-brand for fitness are usually the weakest. Words like Core, Flow, Stretch, Sculpt, Lengthen and Strong tell a client what happens in class. A mark that "describes an ingredient, quality, characteristic, function, feature, purpose, or use" of the services is merely descriptive, and it's refused registration on the Principal Register unless it later acquires distinctiveness.

Generic words are a harder wall. The TMEP's test asks what the category of services is, and whether the public understands the term primarily to refer to that category. Generic terms "are not registrable on the Principal Register under §2(f) or on the Supplemental Register." For a Pilates studio, "Pilates" is the name of the service. For a yoga studio, "yoga" is. Neither one can carry the mark.

That doesn't mean you can't use them. A name like "Juniper Pilates" pairs an arbitrary word (a plant with nothing to do with exercise) with the generic name of the service. The generic part gets disclaimed, because generic matter "must be disclaimed to permit registration on the Principal Register." What you own is the combination, and the work is done by Juniper. If you want the deeper version of this scale, I wrote the article on strong and weak names.

Proving use when there's no product

A clothing brand proves use with a label. A studio doesn't have a label, so the proof works differently. Under TMEP 1301.04, a service mark specimen can be advertising: the TMEP lists "newspaper and magazine advertisements, brochures, billboards" among acceptable examples, and says web pages from your own site "may be submitted as advertising." The specimen has to show a direct association between the name and the services. A class schedule or booking page with the studio name at the top and the classes listed below does that.

A web page specimen "must include the URL and access or print date." Mock-ups don't count. The TMEP rejects "artist renderings, printer's proofs, computer illustrations, digitally created images" because they don't show real use.

There's a second requirement people miss. Under the statute, a service mark is in use in commerce when it's displayed in the sale or advertising of services "and the services are rendered in commerce." A teaser post for a studio that hasn't taught a class yet is advertising, but the services aren't being rendered. That application has to be filed on intent to use instead. I go through what qualifies as a specimen in the article on proof of use.

Filing before the doors open

If you're still building out the space, you can file on intent to use. The statute lets a person with "a bona fide intention" to use a mark in commerce apply now. Once the application is approved, the USPTO issues a notice of allowance, and you file a statement of use within six months of it, with extensions available on request. The statement of use costs $150 per class. I covered the timeline in the article on intent-to-use applications.

What this means for your studio

Before you file, test the name against the scale. Does it describe the workout or the result? Does it lean on Pilates, yoga or barre to do the identifying? If so, look for a distinctive word that can carry the mark on its own. Then list what you actually offer today: classes, trainings, a video library, a shelf of merch. That list decides your classes. And line up a specimen that shows the name next to classes you're already teaching, or file on intent to use if you're not there yet.

If you want to talk through how a studio name gets classified and whether it's strong enough to register, you can see how the search and filing packages work on the services page, and the FAQs page answers most of what comes up before a first call.

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(No legal advice is given on the discovery call. It's a chance to tell me what you're building and hear how the process works.)

Sources

This article is general information, not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.

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