Wimbledon is one of the most iconic tennis tournaments in the world, having just finished for 2025 over the weekend. Named after the district in London, it’s considered the oldest and most prestigious tennis tournament in the world, officially known as “The Championships, Wimbledon.” It’s one of the four Grand Slam tennis events and the only one played on grass courts, held annually at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London.
Intellectual Property protection plays a huge role in Wimbledon’s annual tennis tournament. Inspired by WIPO’s recent post here (the World Intellectual Property Organisation) on IP protection, let’s look at the following Wimbledon IP themed aspects:
Branding
A lot of brands are on show at Wimbledon from fitness apparel, shoes, rackets, balls and even advertisers. A trade mark is used to distinguish your goods and services from those of another business. It can be a symbol, word(s), sound, number, image or scent used to represent a business. Once registered it grants the trade mark owner exclusive rights to use, licence or sell it to others.
Patents
Innovative products at Wimbledon can include ball launchers, rackets, and even nets.
A patent legally protects your invention or how something works for a set period of time to exclude others from making, selling or using an invention. In exchange for this protection, the patent owner must publicly disclose the invention.
You can use a patent for new technology, devices, substances or processes.
Design Rights
A design is what makes a product look the way it does and includes shape, configuration, pattern and ornamentation. When applied to a product, it gives it a unique appearance. In Australia, a design right is registered under the Designs Act 2003 and is for designs that have a commercial or industrial use. It gives you the commercial right to license, use or sell it.
Design Rights at Wimbledon can include tennis rackets, shoes or fitness apparel.
Copyright
An event like Wimbledon tends to receive heavy media coverage, and photographs and videos taken would fall under copyright protection. This grants exclusive rights to the copyright owner to enable them to determine how their work can be used. It protects the expression of ideas & information in material form and applies automatically as soon as something is written down or recorded.
Plant Varieties/ Plant Breeder Rights
Plant Breeder Rights protect the commercial rights of new plant varieties. As the only grand slam tennis event played on grass courts, the variety of grass used is exclusively sown with 100% Perennial Ryegrass (according to Wimbledon’s official website) – which falls under a plant breeder right category. Wimbledon’s quintessential strawberries and cream, a popular treat for spectators, could also fall under a category of plant variety IP protection
Sports and Trade Marks
Trade mark protection in sport is crucial, with many sports teams acting as valuable brands in their own right.
We recently shared a cautionary trade mark tale on our socials regarding the NSW Women’s State of Origin team quietly rebranding from the “Sky Blues” to the “NSW Blues Women” after Sydney FC, the A-League soccer club, threatened legal action over their moniker.
Over a decade ago, Sydney FC trade marked the nickname “Sky Blues” and has repeatedly pressed the NSWRL to drop it from the women’s Origin side since its inception in 2018.
Bandt shared a great article on this topic with a brief explainer on trade marks when it comes to your sports teams nicknames. Here’s a snippet:
“As clubs increasingly behave like commercial brands, their need to ‘own’ language has collided with long-standing traditions of shared sporting culture.
It’s worth noting that multiple teams holding similar or identical names isn’t usually a legal problem — unless they’re in the same market, with similar services, or causing genuine consumer confusion. That’s the grey area where Sydney FC’s case likely landed.”
Check it out here.
And when it comes to Wimbledon, there are multiple registered trade marks owned by The All England Lawn Tennis Club.
Wimbledon’s Trade Marked Colours
In 2016, after many years, Wimbledon was finally successful in obtaining colour trade mark protection for its iconic green and purple colours – despite having used a dark green and purple colourway since 1909. It’s very difficult for a brand to receive colour trade mark protection. In order to do this, they need to prove that their business model relies heavily on the particular colour/s. It needs to be distinguishable from competitors and identify the company as the definitive source of the product.
The official Wimbledon colours are Pantone 349 C (green) and Pantone 268 C (purple).
The Pantone Colour System & Colour Trade Marks
The Pantone Colour chart debuted in 1963 with the colourful PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM®, an innovative tool that offers a universal language of colour anywhere in the world. The tool organises colour standards through a proprietary numbering system and chip format.
Find out more about the Pantone colour systems here.
When it comes to trade mark law, countries around the world rely on the Pantone Colouring system to attribute relevant colours to the trade mark application. For example, McDonalds trade marked its written name with the colours yellow and red in the logo. And Facebook trade marked its name with the classic blue colour. ⠀
Now with a total of 2,390 solid Pantone colours to choose from, some businesses have been successful in claiming ownership over a whole colour. These include Tiffany & Co for its robin egg blue, T-Mobile’s magenta, 3M for its canary yellow Post-It notes and Cadbury purple (although Cadbury later lost its approval due to trade mark disputes).
Litton Legal – Intellectual Property Experts
If you need assistance protecting your brand’s intellectual property – we can help. Get in contact with our friendly team here.
