Fox pitches ‘OK, Boomer’ TM for new TV show

Fox Media has filed a trademark application for the ‘OK, Boomer’ meme, seemingly as the basis for an upcoming television series.

The application, filed earlier this month, is for class 41 covering an “on-going television series featuring reality competition, comedy, and game shows”.

The ‘OK, Boomer’ phrase exploded in popularity after first appearing on the social media platform TikTok.

It is generally used by younger people to mock older generations, or ‘boomers’, and their attitudes.

Fox’s application was spotted by Josh Gerben, partner at  Gerben Law Firm, who posted it on  Twitter.

Fox is not the only company to try and incorporate the phrase into a trademark—there have been a total of five trademark applications for the phrase filed at the USPTO to date.

In an interview with CNN, Gerben said the US Patent and Trademark Office would likely refuse all applications to register the phrase as a trademark.

This was because ‘OK, Boomer’ had become a “widely-used message”, he said.

Gerben added: "A trademark registration will not issue in a phrase that is commonly used to convey a social or political message. This is because such a 'viral' phrase is incapable of identifying the source of a product or service—which is what trademarks must do to be capable of registration."

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