Cathay Home is hardly a household name. The New York-based textile distributor has been shifting bedding through Target, Nordstrom and Bed Bath & Beyond for years. Last May, the company filed a trademark application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a refreshed logo on its “Swift Home” line of pillows, mattresses and sheets.
The name had been in use for a decade.
The original mark was filed in 2015, registered without incident in 2016, and renewed just last month. Perfectly unremarkable branding for a perfectly unremarkable bedding company.
There was just one problem. The new logo rendered the word “Swift” in a looping cursive script. And there is only one person on the planet who gets to write that word, that way.
Last week TAS Rights Management filed its second formal opposition with the Patent Office demanding the mark be blocked. The filing argued that Cathay Home’s calligraphic “Swift” was “highly similar” to the custom font approximating the handwriting of a certain musical artist and how it appears across her registered trademarks.
It alleged a “false association” that could mislead consumers into believing the artist in question was endorsing the bedding. By way of helpful context, the filing noted the petitioner was “one of the most famous musicians in the world.” Fourteen Grammys. Six continents of stadium tours. You know the drill.
And it is a drill. Taylor Swift has filed more than 300 trademark applications in the United States alone. Globally, her WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) filings exceed 438 across 16 countries. She has trademarked her name, her initials, her signature, her album titles, her tour names, individual song lyrics, her fan community and the names of all her cats.
“This Sick Beat,” a throwaway line from Shake It Off, is federally protected intellectual property. Each mark spans multiple goods and services classes, from music recordings to apparel to household textiles.
The strategy operates on two fronts. Pre-emptively, in what lawyers often refer to as “quiet filings”, Swift’s tiny but effective team led by Darla Rumsey file trademarks in advance of every release, covering not just the obvious categories but any plausible area of commercial exploitation.
When Swift announced her latest album on Travis Kelce’s New Heights podcast earlier this year, her legal team had filed trademark applications for THE LIFE OF A SHOWGIRL, TLOAS, and a TS logo six hours earlier. That gap was deliberate—the announcement went out while the filings were still invisible. By the time fans, competitors, or trademark squatters could see the applications, Swift already controlled everything. The defensive perimeter is completed before the enemy even knows there is a war.
Post hoc enforcement is equally efficient. In 2021, Evermore Park, a fantasy attraction in Utah, discovered that having the same name as a certain album carries consequences when Swift countersued over the unlicensed use of her music. During the Eras Tour, TAS filed federal lawsuits against counterfeit sellers operating near her concert venues, securing permanent injunctions. Through WIPO, her team has forced transfers of cybersquatting domains mimicking her official store.
