Shabby Chic is Now a Trademarked Term!

Joining the ranks of notable trademarked terms like "Baby on Board", "Bananas", "Very Peri", "Smiley Face", "Save the Earth" and "May the Fourth Be With You" (to name a few) is "Shabby Chic."

That means that you can't use "Shabby Chic" as a tag on your products (I think I just heard a collective groan of disappointment). If your products haven't already been deleted by the Zazzle Content Management Team, change all instances of "Shabby Chic" in products that use the term as a tag, title, or part of the description. Or batch hide them all first and then update them at a less frenetic pace.

It's always a good idea to check with the U.S. Trademark and Patent Office. Hopefully, this will save you a lot of pre-design grief (post-design grief is a different matter). https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/search/search-information

One would think the USTPO is the final authority on such matters. But I'm pretty sure that there are plenty of gray areas. I don't think Pantone has trademarked every one of its color names (I'm still ticked off at them for "Mediterranean Blue" and "Ocean Blue". You'll excuse the pun if I say that those color names don't hold a lot of water with me. I think that travel agencies would agree with me, too).

zPro Silver (and higher) Designers can follow the conversation in the Zazzle Community forum here: https://community.zazzle.com/t5/pro-silver-private/so-anyone-with-the-term-shabby-chic-in-title-description-or-tags/td-p/146340

Everyone can check out this helpful link, which talks about the difference between copyright and trademark: https://community.zazzle.com/t5/general-zazzle-discussion/copyright-versus-trademark/m-p/59080#M7747