BELIEVE IT! Registered trade marks play a key role in merchandising and enforcement for anime brand owners.

According to a recent report by Fairfield Market Research, the global anime merchandising market is expected to grow from USD 9.15 billion in 2024 to USD 16.33 billion by 2031.

When we are seeing premier league footballers celebrating goals wearing Obito Uchiha masks, and Netflix pivoting to a broad range of anime titles, it’s obvious that there has been a significant growth in the appeal of anime worldwide 

Furthermore, according to the report, the increase in digital platforms has transformed the merchandising landscape and innovation in the fields of AR and VR has diversified the range of merchandise in the sector. 

Anime brand owners will no doubt want to exploit opportunities in new markets accordingly.

So, as Naruto would say, BELIEVE IT! - registered trade marks play a key role in achieving merchandising objectives in this sector. 

A registered trade mark protects a brand in relation to the goods and services of interest to its owner and grants exclusive rights to the owner of the registration to use, and allow others to use, the brand subject of the registration. A registration can also be enforced to prevent third party use of identical and confusingly similar trade marks. 

Anime brand owners would generally protect the manga title and programme title, character names, and character appearance in relation to the publication of manga and the provision of an animated series it is clear that they will need to put protection in place for other goods and services for which they may seek to commercialise those trade marks via merchandising and licensing opportunities. 

Using Naruto as an example, Shueisha (the original publisher of the manga) owns 240 registered and filed trade marks for the term NARUTO in stylised form and in plain text, and foreign script versions of the term NARUTO, in 32 territories worldwide. 

Whilst Shueisha owns the trade mark registrations for NARUTO and associated brands it appears that they licence those trade marks to TV Tokyo as the producer of the anime and that in turn they have granted rights to TV Tokyo to bring action for trade mark infringement against counterfeiters, as is evidenced by the recent success in the US courts reflected in the linked article. 

In addition to the core manga and animation related goods and services, the registrations protect the brand across a broad range of merchandise products such as games and toys, video games, clothing, cosmetics, drinks and foodstuffs, and printed matter. They even protect the brand for services such as amusement parks and restaurants. A large number of these rights have been secured or filed for since 2022, which is a reflection of the increase in global interest in anime as supported by the Fairfield Report. 

Registered trade marks have a number of key benefits that are crucial to anime and broader animation brands’ achieving their merchandising and enforcement objectives:

Protection- Registered trade marks can protect programme titles, character names and character appearance in relation to the merchandise for which they will be used. This puts brand owners in a strong position to prevent use of their brand by third parties. This is of particular importance for merchandising, where counterfeit products are extremely common. In particular, registered trade marks bolster brand owners’ ability to secure removal of counterfeit products from online platforms such as Amazon, and to prevent infringing use of character appearance via digital avatars or skins in virtual environments. 

Value- Trade mark registrations are extremely valuable assets and as consumer awareness of anime brands increases globally, there will be greater opportunities for those brands to be licensed to third parties for merchandising purposes. A strong trade mark portfolio will have a direct impact on the economic benefits for the brand owners looking to enter into licence agreements for merchandising purposes, and will also provide licensed partners with greater confidence that the brands they are licensing are properly protected via trade mark registration in relation to the licensed goods, in order to ensure that their investment is properly protected. 

Marks & Clerk works with animation companies to ensure that their IP is protected in the core territories where their programmes will be aired and sold, but also in relation to territories where merchandising opportunities are available, and where counterfeiting is prevalent. 

We will be attending the Manchester Animation Festival as a sponsor on 14 November and would love to meet with any companies in the sector that are developing strong IP that requires protection via trade mark registration. 

If this article piques your interest please don’t hesitate to contact Graeme Murray to arrange a meeting at the festival.