New Tartan ? Maybe!

[Chas]

A new tartan has just been registered. Does it look vaguely familiar? Royal Stewart maybe?

Well you'd be wrong.



It is in fact, Tilted Kilt.

Reference: 10682

Designer: Tilted Kilt Franchise Operating LLC
Tartan date: 15/03/2006
Registration date: 23 August 2012
Category: Corporate

Restrictions: Yes. Use of this tartan design is restricted to use by and for the Tilted Kilt Franchise Operating LLC. The tartan may appear only in applications as approved by TKTCLLC. Current uses include costuming, pub decoration, marketing, race car decoration; sports uniform decoration and others.
The TK tartan may only be woven by express written consent of TKFOLLC

The Tilted Kilt Tartan design is included in a US Patent Office trademark and trade dress registration by Tilted Kilt Franchise Operating LLC.

Registration notes: The Tilted Kilt is a Celtic-themed pub franchise based in Tempe, Arizona, USA. The tartan is used in staff costume and throughout brand presence. It was designed and the first 2000 metres of it produced by Marton Mills (England). A further 2000-plus metres have since been produced. It has appeared in advertisments, on television and on race cars, boats and other applications. It has also been included in the Tilted Kilt trade dress registration in the US Patent Office.

Registrant details: Ron Lynch, TKFOHQ 664 W. Warner Road, Tempe, Az, United States, 85284

This on the other hand IS Royal Stewart:



I really don't know how they got away with that, but they did!

Regards

Chas

[mookien]

A new tartan has just been registered. Does it look vaguely familiar? Royal Stewart maybe? ...

I really don't know how they got away with that, but they did!
...

Well, in recent months and in several new tartan designs we have seen how "open minded" the Scottish Register of Tartans can be. I offer that as an observation, not necessarily as a complaint. I like the design. I just don't have the "qualifications" to wear it.

2000 yards? I wonder if Martin Mills charged them a reasonable loom set-up fee.

I'll bet some of those kilted lassies stayed up all night working on that design. I'm not being entirely facetious. It's better than I could do ... even with the help of tartan-design software, and some of my Stewart friends.

[MacSpadger]

Well, in recent months and in several new tartan designs we have seen how "open minded" the Scottish Register of Tartans can be. I offer that as an observation, not necessarily as a complaint. I like the design. I just don't have the "qualifications" to wear it.

2000 yards? I wonder if Martin Mills charged them a reasonable loom set-up fee.

I'll bet some of those kilted lassies stayed up all night working on that design. I'm not being entirely facetious. It's better than I could do ... even with the help of tartan-design software, and some of my Stewart friends.

Is there any other difference in the two tartans apart from the obvious lack of green in Tilted Kilt?
It's been also been pointed out in other places how some of the "Irish tartans" are "adaptations" of existing registered Scottish designs, but no, the designers says they are not "copies" or "adaptations", but "tributes". I guess it's all in the wording............

[Thomas H]

Sounds like if some one has the money , they can make any tartan in any design they want
just make the thread count bigger or smaller and there you go ,(new tartan ) LOL

[Thomas H]

How protected is a Tartan any way ? with all the new tartans coming out weekly (i get the emails ) and I figured it was only a matter of time be fore they start over lapping colors .
I guess it is all in the making money more then the feeling of having a tartan you can be proud to call your own .

I mean they have them for everything ..
it is in my opinon only , it is sad

[mookien]

Is there any other difference in the two tartans apart from the obvious lack of green in Tilted Kilt? ...

It appears to me from Chas's pictures that both green and blue are in the Tilted Kilt, but appear in very thin stripes (2 threads?). One could compare the thread counts, but this one doesn't have the energy or desire to do so, not at this time anyway.

[mookien]

How protected is a Tartan any way ? with all the new tartans coming out weekly (i get the emails ) and I figured it was only a matter of time be fore they start over lapping colors .
I guess it is all in the making money more then the feeling of having a tartan you can be proud to call your own . ...

One can copyright a tartan design and demand a fee for its use, but I would be (pleasantly) surprised if any tartan designer is getting rich from their design work.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

The only real difference to my eye is the width of the blue and green stripes. I questioned this when I saw it come through. I always thought the Titled Kilt girls I saw in people's pictures posted here were wearing some inexpensive fashion variation of Royal Stewart. In fact, if I were shown a sample of this tartan for identification that's exactly how I would have called it, without even pausing for a breath.

While it is technically a different tartan, because the widths of the green and blue stripes have been changed, it doesn't pass the visual test, and that is, is this tartan visually distinct from pre-existing tartans? I don't think so.

In my mind, the only justification for a tartan being so similar to another is if there is some real connection that is trying to be highlighted. For example, the Carolina tartan, designed by Peter MacDonald, is very similar to the Prince Charles Edward Stuart tartan, by design, as a nod to the historic origins of the Carolina colony. I designed a tartan once for the Barbecue Presbyterian Church that was very similar to the MacDonald tartan, in honor of their founding MacDonald families. So in each of these cases the visual similarity was intentional.

I don't know about this, though. Maybe Tilted Kilt instructed Marton Mills, "We want a tartan that looks like Royal Stewart, but is just different enough we can copyright it." I don't know.

[SlackerDrummer]

If I recall correctly, Matt, the only difference between the Carolina tartan and the PCES is the addition of the two-thread thin red stripe between the green section and the black stripe. If that is considered a sufficient difference for a new tartan, then this Tilted Kilt tartan is "significantly" different from the Royal Stewart.

In all seriousness, though, this is too similar. If they had flip-flopped the white and yellow stripes I think they could have gotten by with it being something other than a complete rip-off. Not as it stands.

[Joe I]

I see several differances but, if I hadn't had them side by side. Or it would be beter if they WERE side by side. To get a beter veiw of the slight differances.