Brands are clamoring to trademark common words, like “the”

Brands are clamoring to trademark common words, like “the”

It’s difficult to write a sentence without using the word “the,” yet this generic three-letter formulation is now appearing on trademark registration applications. The Ohio State University is the latest brand to seek a claim to this utterly indistinct word, but it’s not the first. The university is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a little bit behind fashion designer Marc Jacobs.