Sports nutrition ingredients help consumers maximize the benefits of exercise through improved energy, endurance, recovery and muscle building. The need for safe and proven ingredients continues to rise with the interest in high intensity and high performance exercise. Patents protect inventions and trademarks protect brands.

A review of nutritional supplement trademark applications and registrations found more than 7,000 that included the term “sport," and variations thereof, in the list of goods and services. Of the 15 most-common terms in these trademarks, only six terms (nutrition, life/live, pro/protein, energy, sport, natural/nature) and variations thereof appeared more than 100 times. The most common term—nutrition—appeared 210 times. Terms such as super, max, supplement, strength/strong, vitamin, active and extreme appeared fewer than 50 times. These results may indicate that there is a wide diversity of marks in the sports supplement field. The diversity of trademark names in such an established area of nutritional supplements shows there is a significant opportunity for branding new products.

Over 300 original patent applications were published over the past 20 years that are directed to sports ingredients, including new ingredients and combinations, and inventions for improving energy, reducing fatigue and assisting recovery.

Learn more about trends in sports nutrition intellectual property (IP) as well as the science behind these products in INSIDER’s Sports Nutrition Ingredient Science Digital Magazine.

Attorney Andreas Baltatzis is a director at KramerAmado PC, a boutique law firm specializing in intellectual property (IP). He represents numerous innovative nutritional supplement and nutraceutical companies that improve people’s lives every day. Baltatzis also helps companies prepare and implement IP strategies by obtaining patents and trademarks that protect their innovations and cash flow, as well as advising clients on successfully launching new products and brands.

Gideon Eckhouse is a senior associate at KramerAmado, with more than 10 years of experience in patents and trademarks. He assists innovative nutritional supplement and nutraceutical companies protect their IP throughout the world. Eckhouse counsels and implements global trademark strategies for new brand launches. Additionally, he prepares and prosecutes patent portfolios protecting new products coming to market.