IP Spotlight - December 2025

To protect the integrity and commercial value of the ‘Ashes’ series, the MCC, ECB and/or CA, have secured registered trade mark protection for a range of trade marks across multiple classes in both Australia and the United Kingdom over the years. These registrations include:

Today, the ‘Ashes’ isn’t just an historic cricketing rivalry, it has taken on a life of its own, even securing registration as a trade mark in both Australia and the United Kingdom. The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), being the custodian of the ‘official’ home of cricket, Lord’s Cricket Ground in London, works alongside the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and Cricket Australia (CA), the national governing bodies for cricket in their respective jurisdictions, to manage and safeguard the use of the ‘Ashes’ brand. THE ASHES AS A BRAND, NOT JUST A TROPHY presented with a small terracotta urn, said to contain the ashes of a burnt cricket bail, a potent symbol of what England sought to reclaim. Legend took root and what began as a newspaper quip became a tradition, a trophy, and one of the fiercest sporting rivalries in the world: the ‘Ashes’, forever contested between Australia and England. In the highly competitive world of sport, the race to protect ever-evolving intellectual property assets is an ongoing contest, with sporting clubs and associates protecting everything from team names, logos, slogans, and trophies, to inventions used in relation to the sport itself. Cricket is no exception, and few symbols are more iconic (or more protected) than ‘The Ashes’, the hotly contested cricket series played between Australia and England. More than 140 years ago, a single cricket match sparked one of the sport’s greatest rivalries and one of its most enduring brands. In 1882, England suffered a shocking defeat to Australia on their own home soil – a loss so unexpected that a British newspaper theatrically likened it to the death of English cricket, declaring that ‘the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia’. With a vow to return the ‘Ashes’ to England on their next tour to Australia, the English captain was

The ECB has also secured registration of logos relating to the ‘Ashes’ cricket series such as:

PROTECTING THE URN ITSELF

The ‘Ashes’ Trophy, commonly known as the Ashes Urn, is one of the most recognisable symbols in cricket. The original urn is no longer presented to the winning team; instead, a Waterford Crystal urn-shaped trophy, commissioned by the MCC in collaboration with the ECB and CA, is awarded at the conclusion of each series. The original ‘Ashes’ urn remains the property of the MCC and is permanently housed in the MCC Museum of the Lord’s Cricket Ground.

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