For those interested in the newest cruise ships, there’s a little trick to seeing what some of the biggest cruise lines are thinking with their newest builds.
Given the importance of trademarks and branding in today’s business world, cruise lines trademark names of potential ships. This gives them protection right from the start of anyone else using those names before they do. As a result, some cruise lines — like Royal Caribbean — trademark several names well in advance, even if they don’t currently have plans to use them.
These trademarks are publicly searchable via the United States Patent and Trademark Office. It gives a hint to what Royal Caribbean is thinking for new ship names. It’s one way that names of ships leak before there is a public announcement.
On the other hand, it could give us a potential look at what names Royal Caribbean is no longer interested in using for its ships. That’s because for several reasons, an application for a trademark can be abandoned. Essentially this means the applicant no longer has the official trademark. It could be that they no longer wish to use it (and thus ignore requests from the trademark office for more information) or some other reason.
No matter why, it is interesting when a cruise line no longer has a name of a potential ship trademarked. For Royal Caribbean, we recently noticed that the following names were all shown as no longer “live” in the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s database:
- Apex of the Seas
- Emblem of the Seas
- Passion of the Seas
- Joy of the Seas
- Emblem of the Seas
- Vantage of the Seas
You can see the status of each one here:
The change happened for each at different times, ranging from years ago to just last month.
One thing to note is that it’s only a possibility that Royal Caribbean isn’t planning to use these names. There is a chance the cruise line could always come back and renew the trademark to “live” status. As you can see from many of these names, there are multiple entries. That indicates that Royal Caribbean abandoned them, but came back later to re-claim the trademark. It’s not unusual for the company to do this several times before officially naming a ship.
Still, we find it interesting that these names have been allowed to go dead and think it means the company isn’t planning to use them anytime in the near future.
So what names does the company have with live trademarks that aren’t already in use on current ships? We found all the following names are “live” with the trademark office:
One of these could be the name of Royal Caribbean’s new ship.
