When Jon Corns first told me about Earls Golf, I knew straight away this was a brand worth protecting properly. A former assistant professional at The Belfry and Celtic Manor, a man who reached final qualifying for The Open Championship, returning to the game after years away and finding that the kind of shoes he used to trust had vanished from the modern market. So he decided to make them himself.
Earls Golf is a fine leather golf shoe brand born in Earls Barton, a Northamptonshire village that has been making shoes since the thirteenth century. Full-grain calf leather. Goodyear welt construction. Premium leather linings. Detachable Softspikes soles. Cedar shoe trees in the box. Made to last a decade. The brand launches in 2027 and the first pairs are already being prepared.
I had the privilege of preparing and filing the UK trademark work for Earls Golf. There are two applications, not one, and the Intellectual Property Office confirmed acceptance of both on 21 May 2026. They are now entering the public opposition window ahead of full registration.
It is, on the surface, a straightforward piece of intellectual property work. But the story behind it – and the reason it matters – is worth telling.
Why register a trademark at all
A brand is one of the most valuable assets a business will ever own, and yet it is one that founders often leave unprotected. There is a common assumption that simply trading under a name, putting it on a website and selling product is enough to claim it. It is not.
In England and Wales, you do get a degree of unregistered protection through the common law tort of passing off, but enforcing it is slow, expensive and evidentially demanding. You have to prove goodwill, misrepresentation and damage. None of that is easy when you are six months into trading and a competitor has just launched a similar name in your market.
A registered trademark, by contrast, is a property right. It is governed by the Trade Marks Act 1994 and administered by the UK Intellectual Property Office. Once registered, it gives you exclusive rights to use the mark for the goods and services you have registered it for, an easier route to enforcement against infringers, and an asset you can license, charge or sell.
For a business with ambitions to build a brand of any longevity, trademark registration is not optional. It is foundational.
Two marks, not one
There are two separate applications.
- UK00004387490 protects “EARLS GOLF” as a word mark.
- UK00004387497 protects “EG EARLS GOLF” as a figurative mark, covering the full logo with the EG monogram.
The decision to file both was deliberate. Each does something different.
A word mark protects the verbal element of the brand. It catches anyone using “Earls Golf” in any typeface, layout or visual treatment.
A figurative mark protects the visual identity. The EG monogram, the typography, the composition as a whole. It catches anyone copying the look of the brand even if they use different words underneath.
Either mark on its own would leave a gap. A word mark alone would not catch a competitor that swapped out the name but cloned the monogram and the overall visual signature. A figurative mark alone would not catch a competitor using the words “Earls Golf” in an entirely different visual treatment. Filing both closes both gaps.
There is a strategic dimension as well. In opposition and enforcement, word marks and figurative marks behave differently. A word mark must distinguish itself from every verbal mark on the register that contains similar words. A figurative mark, being a specific composition, often has more room on distinctiveness. Holding both means the brand can lead with whichever mark gives the stronger position in any given dispute.
For a brand that intends to build long-term value rather than just trade for a couple of seasons, this is the proper approach. It costs more up front. The protection scope it buys is materially broader.
Three classes, considered
Both applications cover the same three classes of the Nice Classification, the international system used to categorise goods and services for trademark purposes.
- Class 25 is the heart of it. Clothing, footwear and headgear. This is where the golf shoes themselves sit.
- Class 18 covers leather goods. The natural extension for a fine leather brand into bags, accessories and small leather pieces.
- Class 28 covers sporting articles. The golf-specific goods that sit alongside the shoes.
Three classes for a brand at launch is considered, not greedy. Each one reflects an actual or near-term product line. A trademark registered for goods you never sell is at risk of being revoked for non-use under section 46 of the 1994 Act, and the temptation to register everything is real but bad strategy. Better to register what you mean, and add more later as the brand expands.
The current stage
The IPO has now completed examination on both applications. The examiner, having searched the relevant registers and applied the absolute grounds tests under the 1994 Act, confirmed on 21 May 2026 that each application meets the requirements for publication. That is the first material hurdle cleared.
What happens next is the two-month opposition period. The marks are published in the Trade Marks Journal and anyone with earlier rights has the chance to object. If a third party gives notice that they are considering opposition, the period extends to three months. Assuming the window closes without challenge, the IPO registers the marks two weeks later and issues the certificates.
That opposition window is one of the underrated reasons to file early. It is a public notice period. Anyone who thinks you are stepping on their existing rights has the chance to say so before you are registered, which means you find out about conflicts now rather than after you have spent two years and a marketing budget building the brand.
Why this matters to Jon
I asked Jon what protecting the brand meant to him.
Earls Barton has been making the world’s finest shoes since the thirteenth century. The name Earls Golf carries that heritage and I was not prepared to leave it undefended. The trademark is not a formality — it is the legal foundation of everything we are building. Without it, the brand is just a name on a website. With it, the name belongs to us, the story belongs to us, and the value we create over the next decade belongs to our family.
The decision to file two marks rather than one, and across three classes rather than just footwear, was Steven’s advice and it was the right call. A word mark and a figurative mark together close the gaps that either one alone would leave open. For any founder launching a brand with genuine long-term ambition, protecting the Intellectual Property at the start is not a cost — it is the cheapest investment you will ever make in the business.
A note for other founders
If you are launching a new product, a new service or a new brand, the order of operations matters. Trade mark before launch. Domain in place. Company name registered and matched. The brand, the legal mark and the corporate vehicle should sit in alignment from day one, not be reconciled retrospectively when something goes wrong.
The cost of doing this properly at the start is a fraction of the cost of fixing it later. I have seen founders pay several times over to clean up branding decisions that could have been ten-minute conversations before launch.
Step back into proper
Earls Golf launches in 2027 and is currently taking early access sign-ups at earlsgolf.co.uk, with ten per cent off the first pair reserved for founding customers. If you care about leather, craft and the kind of golf shoe that should never have left the game, it is worth a look.
And if you are thinking about your own brand, whether new or established, and you have not yet registered the trademark, the question is no longer whether you should. It is when.