Trademarking Día de Muertos: What It Means for Latino Businesses
By
Culture + Ownership / Día de Muertos / Pablo Segarra
Latino founders, three weeks before Día de Muertos, the federal trademark register shows who has been filing for it. If you have ever wondered what can be trademarked, here is the answer playing out live: a holiday's name, registered for the table runners people buy to celebrate it.
No. 8468036 DIA DE MUERTOS, registered Sept. 29, 2026 for table runners, towels, pillow covers and blankets. The record shows no opposition. |
On September 29, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) registered DIA DE MUERTOS on the Principal Register for a list of textile goods: table runners, dish towels, curtains, place mats, pillow covers, blanket throws, cloth flags and towels. The owner of record is Shanghai Wakan Trading Co., Ltd., a company organized in China. It filed on February 27, 2026, claimed first use on February 11, and went from filing to registration in seven months, according to the USPTO's TSDR record. The record shows no disclaimer of the words and no opposition.
Then on October 8, Aristocrat Technologies, a gaming company, filed CHILI DE LOS MUERTOS for gaming machines and casino software, per its new application. It joins VIVA CALAVERA from AGS and MUERTOS MAGIC from Oryx Gaming, both filed in August. Earlier this year, The Coca-Cola Company received a notice of allowance for a CATRINA design mark for soft drinks, per the USPTO record.
Here's my position. The problem isn't that companies outside the community file on the holiday. Culture spreads, and people everywhere buy marigold table runners in October. The problem is that the name of the holiday cleared examination for the exact goods people buy to celebrate it, and nobody from the community used the 30 days the law gives us to object. That registration does not own Día de Muertos. But until someone challenges it, it is a federal registration in a lane where Latino-owned businesses sell every fall.
Feb 27 Application filed | Aug 11 Published for opposition | Sept 29 Registered, class 24 | Oct 8 CHILI DE LOS MUERTOS filed |
What can be trademarked, and what can't?
| Almost any word, phrase, logo or design can be trademarked if it tells customers who a product comes from, and only for the specific goods or services listed. What can't be registered: generic names, words that merely describe the goods, and widely used phrases that buyers read as a message instead of a brand. A holiday's name printed across holiday décor sits close to that last line, which is why this registration surprised me. |
The USPTO's own examination manual says widely used messages, the kind people buy because of what the words express, generally fail to work as trademarks. Its examples include I ♥ DC and TEAM JESUS: phrases consumers read as affinity or affiliation, not as the name of a company, per TMEP 1202.04(b). The manual also flags wording used as decoration across products from many sellers. A table runner that says Día de Muertos looks a lot like that.
I haven't read the June 28 office action or the July 14 response in that file, so I can't tell you what the examiner raised or how it was answered. What I can tell you is the outcome: the application was approved, published on August 11, and registered on September 29 with nothing in between.
What does the DIA DE MUERTOS registration actually own?
| It owns the words DIA DE MUERTOS as a brand for the listed textile goods in U.S. commerce, and nothing else. It does not own the holiday, calaveras, ofrendas, pan de muerto, the phrase in an event name, or Día de Muertos as a description of what your product is for. Its real power is procedural: a registration is presumed valid until someone proves otherwise, and that presumption is what gets demand letters written. |
Federal law treats a Principal Register registration as prima facie evidence of validity and ownership, under 15 U.S.C. § 1115(a). The same statute gives everyone else a defense: using a term fairly and in good faith only to describe your own goods, rather than as your brand, is descriptive fair use under § 1115(b)(4). If your table runner is called Abuelita's Altar and the tag says it was made for Día de Muertos, you are describing. If your table runner's brand name is Día de Muertos, you are walking into the registration.
The registration can't take the holiday from anyone. It can change who gets nervous selling into it.
Who owns the value once money enters the picture?
Look at the year's filings as a group and a pattern shows up. Gaming companies are building slot titles around the imagery. A global beverage company is clearing a Catrina character. A grape grower filed DIA DE LOS MUERTOS for fresh grapes, and that application is suspended, per the USPTO record. Alongside them are smaller filers: a Texas company filed DIA DE LOS MUERTOS MUSEUM for class 41 services in September, and a Florida restaurant company's CATRINA QUERIDA was published for opposition in the spring.
We have been here before. In 2013, Disney filed to register Día de los Muertos for merchandise tied to a Pixar film and withdrew about a week later after public criticism, saying the movie's name had changed, as CBS Los Angeles reported. This year I couldn't find any outcry at all. The filings went through quietly.
None of that is illegal, and most of it is ordinary branding. It's what can be trademarked, working exactly as designed. But it tells you where the commercial value of the holiday is landing: with whoever owns a specific name on a specific product. The families who make the papel picado, bake the pan, and run the shops on the block create the demand every October. Culture creates the value. Ownership keeps it with the people who built it.
Can anyone challenge a registration like this?
| Yes, but the easy window has closed. Anyone who believed they'd be harmed could have opposed within 30 days of publication, or asked for more time, under 15 U.S.C. § 1063. That ran in August and September. Now the route is a petition to cancel at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, which for grounds like descriptiveness must be filed within five years of registration under § 1064. |
Some grounds have no deadline. A registration can be challenged at any time if the mark is the generic name for the goods, under 15 U.S.C. § 1064(3), and the petition can target only some of the listed goods. My read is that this registration is vulnerable, especially on failure to function. A smart lawyer on the other side would disagree, and the examiner clearly had a reason to approve it. That is exactly why these fights get decided with evidence, not outrage.
What should Latino businesses selling into Día de Muertos do this season?
If you are building a brand around the season, here's how I'd sort it, depending on what you sell. This is the trademark attorney for Latino businesses version, not the social media version.
| If you sell | What you can own | What I would do now |
| Home goods and décor | Your own brand name, on your labels and listings | Use Día de Muertos to describe the product, never as your brand. Keep proof of how long you have sold these goods. |
| Pan de muerto, food, drinks | Your bakery or product name, not the dish | Register the name customers ask for, in the classes you actually sell in. |
| Events, museums, altars, tours | Your event or venue name as a service mark | File for the event name before the flyers go out, and check for conflicts first. |
| Apparel and art prints | Your label and signature designs | Separate the brand from the artwork. Your label is the trademark; the art is copyright. |
Where I could be wrong
Here's the honest complication. The owner may be using DIA DE MUERTOS the way a brand gets used, on hang tags and packaging, and the USPTO registers non-English phrases all the time. Challenging a registration also costs real money, and for most founders the better investment is building and protecting a name of their own. A cancellation fight can make a point. A registration of your own brand pays you every season.
Calling every outside filer a thief also makes the culture sound fragile. It isn't. What we need is the habit of watching the register the way we watch competitors, and filing first in our own lanes. Protección de marca para negocios latinos starts with knowing what's being filed around you.
Nobody can register the holiday. Anybody can register the brand on the shelf. |
So when you set up the altar in a few weeks, look at the table runner under the photos and the candles. The holiday on it belongs to the people who keep it. The name on the tag belongs to whoever filed. If you sell into this season, make sure one of those names is yours.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you trademark the name of a holiday?
You can apply, because what can be trademarked depends on the goods, and sometimes a registration issues for specific goods, as DIA DE MUERTOS did for textiles. The USPTO generally refuses widely used messages that buyers see as expression rather than a brand. A registration covers only the listed goods and never the holiday itself.
Can I still sell Día de Muertos products?
Yes. Nobody owns the holiday. Using Día de Muertos to describe what your product celebrates, under your own brand name, is the kind of use the law protects as descriptive fair use. Using it as your brand name on overlapping goods is where risk starts.
How do I oppose a trademark application?
File a notice of opposition with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board within 30 days after the application is published in the Official Gazette, or request an extension before that window closes. After registration, the route becomes a petition to cancel.
Does trademark registration protect my business name everywhere?
A federal trademark registration protects your name as a brand for the goods and services listed, nationwide. It does not stop others from using the same words for unrelated goods or as plain description, so pick classes that match what you sell.
Segarra IP PLLC · Trademark Clarity Audit Sell into the season. Own the name. Before your holiday line ships, a Trademark Clarity Audit maps what you own, what your registration covers, and which filings around your lane need watching. Start with a Trademark Clarity Audit |
Sources
Pablo Segarra, Esq. is a trademark attorney and the founder of Segarra IP PLLC, a federal trademark firm for Latino founders and creators behind growing brands.
General information, not legal advice.
