Overview
- Allie Mitrovich registered a U.S. trademark that covered merchandise using the phrase “Hot Girls Read,” including bookmarks, stickers, notebooks and apparel.
- Mitrovich said she filed paperwork to abandon the registration on June 8, issued an apology to small businesses, and pledged remaining proceeds from the products to literacy charities.
- BookTok users quickly produced examples of the phrase dating to 2016–2020 that contradicted Mitrovich’s 2021 origin claim and pointed to thousands of existing Etsy listings using the slogan.
- Community responses included protest merchandise and a GoFundMe that raised roughly $2,000 to help challenge the mark while screenshots of alleged cease-and-desist messages circulated and were denied by Mitrovich.
- The case shows that U.S. trademarks protect specific commercial uses but can be undermined by prior public or commercial use, a limit that matters for independent sellers who rely on shared online language.