The First Registered Trademark: Bass & the Red Triangle (1876)

The trademark logo usually named for 1876 is the Bass red triangle, entered when Britain's register opened on 1 January that year. What makes it interesting is not the date. It is that the mark was a picture, carrying no words at all.

Key takeaways

• The UK Trade Marks Registration Act 1875 created the register, which opened on 1 January 1876.
• Bass & Co's red triangle is usually given as the first entry, and the story is repeated more often than it is sourced.
• It was a device mark: a shape and a colour, with no brand name inside it.
• Nepal allows exactly that. Sec. 2(c) lets a trade mark be a word, a symbol or a picture, or a combination.
• Almost nobody uses it. Of the 71,536 entries in the first 122 bulletins we extracted, only 2,873 are device-only.
• Among entries with a Nepali address the share is smaller still: 679 of 42,813, about one in sixty.
• Title here comes from registration under Sec. 16, not from how long a logo has been on your signboard.

Which trademark logo was registered in 1876?

The red triangle used by the Burton brewer Bass & Co, on its pale ale. It is recorded as the first entry on the British register, which opened for business on the first day of that year.

The register existed because of the UK Trade Marks Registration Act 1875, passed the previous year. Until then a trader who wanted to stop a copyist had to prove a reputation rather than produce a certificate.

We write "usually given as" deliberately. The account is consistent across the popular sources and is not something we can verify against a primary record, so treat it as the standard telling rather than a checked fact.

What kind of mark was the red triangle?

A pure device. The filed mark was a solid equilateral triangle in red, and the brand name was not part of what was registered.

That is a bolder choice than it looks. A word can be read aloud, spelled in an invoice and typed into a search box, and a shape can do none of those things.

What a shape can do is survive a language barrier, a small label and a quick glance across a bar. Bass was betting on recognition rather than on reading.

Can you register a logo with no words in Nepal?

Yes. Sec. 2(c) of the Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act 1965 defines a trade mark as a word, symbol or picture, or a combination of them, used by any firm, company or individual to distinguish its products or services from others.

The word "picture" is doing real work in that definition. A mark made only of artwork is squarely within what the Department of Industry may register, and no separate category or special form is involved.

The definition in its present form came from the 1987 first amendment, which inserted most of the modern trade mark machinery into a statute that had been much thinner before.

How rare is a device-only mark in Nepal?

Rare enough to be worth a number. We extract every entry from every Industrial Property Bulletin the Department of Industry publishes; our count across the first 122 issues gave 71,536 published entries.

Of those, 45,394 are filed as a word with a logo, 23,269 as a word alone and 2,873 as a device alone. Device-only marks are therefore about four per cent of everything published.

Narrow it to entries carrying a Nepali address and the picture shifts again: 679 device-only marks out of 42,813. Roughly one Nepali filing in sixty takes the route Bass took.

These are IP Sewa counts of published bulletin entries rather than official Department statistics, and "published" is not the same as "registered". Our note on the busiest classes in Nepal uses the same dataset.

Why do so few Nepali businesses file a picture alone?

Partly because a name is the thing a customer asks for at a counter, and partly because a combined mark feels like better value for one application.

There is also a practical reason. A word can be searched, and a picture largely cannot, so a business that files only artwork has a harder time policing it and a harder time proving the scope of what it owns.

None of that makes a device mark wrong. It makes it a deliberate choice that suits a brand recognised by shape, colour or emblem rather than by spelling.

What makes a simple shape distinctive enough?

Its ability to point at one trader, which is the only question the definition in Sec. 2(c) really asks. A triangle in the abstract does not do that, and a triangle used consistently on one product for years can.

The examination side is Sec. 18, under which the Department may decline to register a mark that would damage the goodwill or reputation attached to another person's mark. That is the practical limit on borrowing a familiar shape.

A useful comparison is the long-running dispute over a three-stripe device, covered in our piece on the three stripes. Simple shapes are enforceable, and they are also fought over more than complicated ones.

Does being first on a register still matter?

In Nepal it matters a great deal, because Sec. 16 provides that title to a trade mark is acquired on registration. That is what people mean when they call the country first-to-file.

The register decides between two businesses that both have a reasonable claim, and it decides on a date rather than on a story. Long use is evidence in a dispute and it is not a substitute for a filing.

What happens when the two come apart is set out in registered against unregistered marks and in what happens when someone copies an unregistered logo.

What did the 1875 Act change about proving ownership?

It replaced an argument with a record. Before it, a brewer defending a label had to assemble witnesses, invoices and old packaging to show that customers associated the sign with him.

After it, the same brewer produced a register entry with a date on it. The shift from evidence to record is the whole reason registers exist, and it is the shift Nepal made in 1965.

The broader story of when registration systems appeared, and what "oldest trademark" can mean, sits in our companion piece on the oldest registered trademarks in history.

How does a Nepali filing compare with the 1876 one?

The idea is the same and the machinery is heavier, mostly because of classification. The table below sets the two side by side.

The row that catches people out is the fourth. One brand can need several applications in Nepal, because the NICE classification divides goods and services into forty-five classes and Sec. 18A(2) requires an application for each one you need.

Which classes would a brewery need in Nepal?

Beer sits in Class 32 with non-alcoholic drinks, other alcoholic drinks sit in Class 33, and a branded taproom or restaurant is a service in Class 43.

So the modern equivalent of one 1876 entry is potentially three Nepali applications, each with its own fee and its own date. That is a planning question before it is a legal one.

Work out the list first with the NICE class finder, then confirm it against what you actually sell rather than what you hope to sell.

How do you file a device mark in Nepal?

The route is the ordinary one, with more care taken over the artwork you submit.

1. Settle the artwork first. What you file is what is protected, so a version you are still editing is the wrong version to register.
2. Search for similar devices and similar names. Start with the published trademark search, remembering that it shows published marks rather than live registration status.
3. Choose the classes. One application covers one class under Sec. 18A(2), so list the goods and services honestly.
4. Prepare the papers. A company usually needs its own documents, and a foreign applicant needs a Nepal-based representative under a power of attorney.
5. File at the Department of Industry and keep the acknowledgement, because the filing date is what first-to-file turns on.
6. Answer any query the examiner raises within the time given, rather than letting the file go quiet.
7. Watch the publication. The opposition period runs from publication: a published trademark can be opposed within 90 days, so rely on the deadline the Department of Industry states and act before the last day.
8. Collect the registration certificate and diarise the renewal, because nothing in the Act renews itself. An unopposed Nepali application commonly takes about 12–14 months end to end, and our own bulletin data puts the median filing-to-publication gap at about 3.5 months, though about one mark in six waits more than two years.

How long does the protection run?

Seven years from registration under Sec. 18D. Sec. 23B then allows a trade mark to be renewed any number of times for seven years at a time, which is a friendlier rule than the one patents and designs get.

The renewal request is due within thirty-five days of expiry, with a six-month late window on payment of a fine, after which the registration is automatically cancelled. A registered mark is therefore renewable indefinitely and not permanent.

Sec. 18C adds a use requirement with teeth: a registered mark not brought into use within one year of registration may be cancelled after inquiry.

When may you use the registered symbol?

Only once the mark is actually registered. Sec. 18B says that no trade mark may be used as a registered trade mark without registering it at the Department, and Sec. 19 backs that with a fine and confiscation of the goods involved.

The ™ symbol has no status in the Act at all, which is worth knowing before you put it on packaging as though it meant something legally.

Treat the symbol question as a labelling decision with a legal consequence attached, and check the position before a print run rather than after one.

Does a foreign registration of your logo reach Nepal?

No. Sec. 21B states that title to a trade mark registered in a foreign country is not valid in Nepal unless it is registered here by the person concerned.

Nepal is also outside the Madrid System, so there is no international registration that extends here and no shortcut around a national filing. Sec. 21C does allow the Department to register a foreign-registered mark without enquiries where the foreign certificate is enclosed.

A foreign owner therefore appoints a Nepali representative and files directly. Our search and clearance service is usually the sensible first step in that sequence.

Common mistakes

• Filing a logo you are about to redesign. The filed image is what is protected, and a refresh may need its own application.
• Filing only artwork when the name does the work. Ask which one a customer would say out loud.
• Assuming a plain shape is automatically yours. Sec. 18 lets the Department refuse a mark that damages another's goodwill.
• Searching only for identical names. Similar spellings, similar sounds and similar artwork all matter.
• Using the registered symbol early. Sec. 18B prohibits it, and Sec. 19 adds a fine and confiscation.
• Treating one class as coverage. A drink, a spirit and a taproom are three different applications.

A worked example

This is an illustration, not a real case. A Pokhara roastery has used a plain orange hexagon on its cups and sacks for six years, and the name changes on every seasonal blend.

Here the hexagon is doing the work of a brand, so a device filing is the honest fit rather than a defensive extra. The roastery's own name appears in small type and is not what people recognise.

Two checks come before the application. Whether a similar device already appears in the coffee class, and whether the hexagon is used consistently enough that customers connect it with one roastery.

If the answer to both is yes, this is the Bass situation in miniature: a picture that has quietly become a brand, and no register entry behind it. Our guide to the coffee and bakery class covers where such a filing lands.

Where can you check the law yourself?

The Nepali statute is published by the Nepal Law Commission, and the registering office is the Department of Industry. Both are worth a look before acting on anything written about them.

The classification itself is maintained internationally, and WIPO publishes the current class list. Nepal applies that list under its own power in Sec. 18A(1), by notification in the Nepal Gazette.

This page is general information, not legal advice. A live dispute about a logo needs an advocate and the actual artwork in front of them.

In short

The 1876 logo is the Bass red triangle, and its real lesson is not that it was first. It is that a picture with no words was strong enough to carry a brand, and that someone bothered to register it on the first day it was possible.

Nepal permits the same thing under Sec. 2(c), and almost nobody does it. Four per cent of published entries are device-only, and among Nepali filers it is closer to one in sixty.

If your customers recognise a shape before they read a name, that gap is an opportunity rather than a warning. File the thing they actually recognise.

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If a shape, a colour or an emblem is doing the work your brand name gets credit for, it is worth knowing whether anyone has already published something close to it. Send us the artwork and the goods it appears on, and we will tell you what the published record shows before you commit. Our registration service takes it from there, and you can reach us through contact.