On April 24, 2026, Taylor Swift’s company filed three trademark applications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Two of the applications seek to register sound marks for her spoken catchphrases: “Hey, it’s Taylor Swift” and “Hey, it’s Taylor.” The third application covers a now-iconic image of her on stage in a multicolored bodysuit, silver boots, and a pink guitar.
The filings are quick to read and easy to dismiss as celebrity news. They shouldn’t be. They’re the latest move in what may be a more thoughtful intellectual property strategy. And there are real lessons in it for anyone building a brand, a business, or a personal platform.
The AI angle is the headline. The strategy is the story.
Most coverage frames these filings as a defense against voice cloning and deepfakes, and that framing is fair. AI has made an artist’s likeness easier than ever to misappropriate, and trademark law is one of the few tools designed to give an owner a fast, federal cause of action when someone else uses a name, sound, or image in commerce. Swift’s filings follow a path actor Matthew McConaughey blazed last year, when the USPTO granted him eight trademarks across his name, voice, and likeness.
But the AI threat is the occasion for these filings, not the strategy behind them, which as it turns out is much older and more interesting.
What’s actually in Taylor’s portfolio.
Through her company, TAS Rights Management, Swift has filed more than 300 U.S. trademark applications, with over 400 listings recorded internationally across at least 16 jurisdictions.The portfolio covers among other things:
- Her Stage name and the Taylor’s Version re-recording marks.
- Album titles: Reputation, Lover, Evermore, Midnights, 1989, Fearless (Taylor’s Version), and most recently The Life of a Showgirl.
- Tour names: The Eras Tour, the 1989 World Tour, the Fearless Tour.
- Lyric snippets: “This sick beat,” “Nice to meet you, where you been?” and “The old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now.”
- The Swifties: Yes, her fanbase.
- Her cats: Meredith, Olivia, and Benjamin Swift.
She extends many of those marks internationally through the WIPO Madrid System, which lets a single U.S. filing reach dozens of countries. And when Evermore Park sued her in 2021 over the album name, her team countersued over the park’s unlicensed performances of her music. Both sides dropped their claims, fast and quiet. Sometimes the best defense can be a strong offense, even in IP.
Three lessons we’d give any client:
- Trademark the things people actually recognize you by. A name is the obvious mark. The less obvious, and often more valuable, marks are the catchphrases, sounds, and images your audience already associates with you. If your customers can identify you by it, the USPTO probably can too.
- File before you need it. Right of publicity is covered under state laws, which vary wildly, and are harder to use offensively. A federal trademark gives you a cleaner playbook for takedowns, platform reports, and litigation when an AI-generated knockoff shows up.
- Build the portfolio in layers. Names, slogans, sounds, and images are separate avenues of protection. Owning one doesn’t automatically protect the others, and the “grey area” gaps are where infringers like to live.
You don’t need 300 filings. But if your name, voice, or face is the engine of your business, you probably need more than zero.
If you’d like to talk through what protecting your brand could look like, get in touch. We work with creators, founders, and brand owners on practical IP strategy, without the 300 mark filing budget.