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First Trade Mark Registration

When: 1 January 1876
Where: UK Patent Office
Part of: Bass Red Triangle registered as first UK trademark

The Bass Red Triangle became the first trade mark registered in the UK on 1 January 1876, following the Trade Marks Registration Act 1875.

Registration began on 1 January 1876. The Bass Red Triangle was the first mark registered. Legend suggests a Bass employee queued overnight on New Year's Eve to secure the first position. Bass, Ratcliff & Gretton Limited received the first six registrations, including the Red Triangle for pale ale.

Sources

United Kingdom trade mark law Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-07
Bass Brewery Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-07

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.