Some good feedback on the Northampton labels, thank you. Sadly we have received no answers to any of our questions yet. Here are two more of their labels. Unusually the ‘Trade Mark’ label is the earlier one and dates from the 1930s and the other is the post war variation. It would be nice to hear from anyone who could confirm those dates but from past experience this is unlikely to happen.
2 Comments
23 June, 2014
at 6:21 pm
I think that pre-war many breweries registered trademarks at Stationers Hall. It was the “thing to do”. Especially with Bass getting a bit “heavy” with any brewer, or for that matter anyone else, who depicted anything looking like a red triangle or including any permutation of the four letters B A S S anywhere in their product or brand names. If you look at the NBS logo it has 6 red triangles so to protect themselves from the Bass Ratcliffe & Gretton legal hordes they registered their trademark. Just to let Bass know this they included the words “Trade Mark” indicating the mark had been registered. It’s a possibility that Bass’ lawyer was sent to the great legal library during the war – the best place for all lawyers – because the the “Trade Mark Registered” and other similar terms seemed to lapse about this time. What appears to happen now is that “copyright ” law is now used.
24 June, 2014
at 8:19 pm
It is very gratifying to be proved wrong. Thank you Alastair, I think this adds to our knowledge, which is what it is all about.