What To Know Before Selecting A Title For Your TV Series

In the streaming era, more television shows are being produced and made available to the public than ever before. In the last three years, there has been almost a 20% increase in unique program titles, so television producers must take significant care in naming their series to avoid overlap with the titles of existing series.

Unlike the series footage itself, which may be protected by copyright, the title of a television series may be protected by trademark under the Lanham Act. Importantly, trademark law lends protection only to the title of a series of creative works, not merely to one creative work. In practice, this means that the name of a television series may be trademarked, while individual episode titles are unprotectable.