Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have lived through a series of unfortunate events since giving up on their royal titles in 2020 to move to the United States. Earlier this week, it was reported that their attempt at trademarking ‘Archetypes’ failed miserably and now their plans of releasing more audiovisual content under that name might be at risk.
A few weeks ago, the royal couple revealed that Archewell Audio, their production company, and Spotify had mutually agreed to part ways and abruptly ended their contract. Over the past year, Archewell Audio was only able to produce one podcast for the streaming giant: Meghan’s ‘Archetypes’. The podcast was created to “investigate, dissect and subvert the labels that try to hold women back” but it only ran for one season and 13 episodes.
It has been said that the royal couple did not meet the productivity benchmarks that were previously set as part of their $20 million contract. As a result, they and Spotify decided to put an end to their contract and canceled any further plans to release a second season of ‘Archetypes.’
Despite this, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are reportedly looking for options to continue their projects and that is why they tried to trademark ‘Archetypes.’ However, they were unable to register the name with the United States Patent and Trademark Office as their request was rejected immediately.
According to the Daily Mail, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle sought exclusive use of the name in relation to “downloadable audio recordings and podcasts” but their request was denied because of an existing trademark by Arizonian firm Archetypes LLC. In 2015, they got the right to use the name in a series of books and articles about “nutrition, fitness, sexuality, and psychological self-improvement.”
