Following in the footsteps of other world-class footballers wishing to take advantage of the growing commercialisation of football (or “soccer” for our American friends), Gareth Bale has applied to register his famous heart-shaped goal celebration as a trade mark at the UK Intellectual Property Office. Details of Bale’s application for the word mark ELEVEN OF HEARTS can be found here, while the application for the logo can be found here.

With either a big-money transfer to the King of Spain’s Real Madrid or a large contract-extension in the pipeline, the Tottenham Hotspurs’ Number 11 could be forgiven for rolling over on his bed of £50 notes and going back to sleep. However, given that the average footballer’s career spans around fifteen years, IPcopy would not be surprised to see more and more footballers bringing out their own branded football boots (like Ronaldo’s R9 or Cristiano Ronaldo’s CR7 boots, both released in partnership with Nike) or tiny briefs (à la David Beckham).

As for choosing which trade mark to protect, they would have to go some way to beat the imagination of NBA player Anthony Davis, who spent part of his first pay-check obtaining trade mark protection (“FEAR THE BROW!”) for his prominent uni-brow – check out the brow in his headshot here!

Nick Bowie  18 June 2013