As an IP attorney, I couldn’t help but notice a standout detail in The Royals on Netflix. Bhumi Pednekar plays Sophia Shekhar, a sharp, no-nonsense CEO of a fictional company with a name that immediately caught my attention – Work Potato.

A clever twist on “couch potato,” the phrase captures the spirit of modern hustle culture with humour and precision. It’s witty, relatable, and from a branding perspective, surprisingly marketable. What’s even more surprising? Coincidentally, someone has already filed a trademark application to register Work Potato for business-related services, which leads us to the real legal drama: Can the producers claim rights over the phrase? And is that even possible under IP law?

Copyright? This One Slips Past Copyright.

In the world of IP, short phrases, titles, and expressions fall outside the script.
Under copyright law, you can protect an entire screenplay or episode, but not an isolated phrase like “Work Potato.” So even if it goes viral or becomes a fan-favourite dialogue, it’s not protected by copyright alone.

Trademark? Yes, with a commercial sequel.

To truly “own” a phrase, it must step out of the screen and into the market. That’s where trademark law takes the spotlight. A phrase becomes protectable only when it’s used as a brand for products, services, digital content, or merchandise.

Need proof? Let’s look at how others took fictional names from script to store:

Take Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., a fictional seafood chain from the film Forrest Gump. In a smart IP move, entrepreneur Anthony Zolezzi acquired rights to the name from Paramount Pictures in 1995, turning it into a successful real-world restaurant chain. What began as a line in a movie became a tangible, thriving brand.

Or consider Central Perk, the iconic café from the sitcom Friends. Though entirely fictional, Warner Bros. saw the brand potential and secured trademark registrations across a wide range of goods from mugs, cookie jars, candles, and stationery to apparel and even phone chargers. Today, Central Perk lives beyond the screen through merchandise and themed pop-ups around the world.

Then there’s I’m Lovin’ It, launched in 2003 as a jingle sung by Justin Timberlake. More than just an ad campaign, McDonald’s trademarked the phrase across multiple product classes, embedding it into packaging, uniforms, and licensed products. It became their global identity, a textbook example of how strategic branding and legal protection go hand in hand.

These examples reveal the golden rule in entertainment IP: A phrase is not protectable just because it’s catchy. It becomes legally protectable only when you treat it as a brand. In India and many other countries, you don’t always need to be selling products from day one to register a trademark. If the phrase is unique and distinctive, like “Work Potato,” you can apply for trademark protection even if you only intend to use it commercially in the near future. However, here’s the catch – under Section 47 of the Trade Marks Act, 1999, if a registered trademark isn’t used in India for a continuous period of five years, it can be removed from the Register for non-use. So, if the creators of The Royals want to protect and truly own Work Potato, the smart move would be to register it and start building real-world use through merchandise, spin-off content, or licensing deals. Because in the IP world, taking a term from a script to store isn’t fiction, it’s a strategy backed by law. Trademark it. Brand it. Build it.

Reshma.A