The Day Common Speech Became Property
Imagine receiving a bill for saying "OK." In 1892, that absurd scenario nearly became reality when Boston printer Harold Fitzpatrick successfully trademarked the most ubiquitous word in American English, then proceeded to demand payment from anyone who dared print those two letters.
What started as a clerical mix-up at the U.S. Patent Office evolved into a legal nightmare that threatened to turn ordinary conversation into a minefield of copyright violations. For eighteen months, America's newspapers lived in fear of two letters that had somehow become private property.
Photo: U.S. Patent Office, via c8.alamy.com
A Routine Application Goes Horribly Wrong
Fitzpatrick's original application was supposed to trademark "OK Printing Company" as his business name. But a drowsy patent clerk, working through a stack of applications on a Friday afternoon, somehow processed only the first two letters as a standalone trademark.
The approval sailed through without review, granting Fitzpatrick exclusive commercial rights to "OK" in all printed materials. He discovered the error when his official trademark certificate arrived three weeks later, bearing the single most powerful word in the English language.
Rather than correct the mistake, Fitzpatrick saw opportunity. Within days, he had mailed invoices to seventeen major newspapers demanding retroactive royalties for every instance of "OK" they had published over the previous six months.
The Bill That Shocked America
The New York Herald received a demand for $847—roughly $26,000 in today's money—for using "OK" in 423 separate articles. The Boston Globe owed $1,200. Even small-town papers found themselves facing bills that exceeded their annual profits.
"Mr. Fitzpatrick appears to believe he owns a piece of the American vocabulary," editorialized the Chicago Tribune, which had received its own $600 invoice. "We suggest he next attempt to trademark the word 'the' and retire on the proceeds."
Newspaper editors initially assumed the bills were elaborate pranks. But Fitzpatrick's lawyers quickly demonstrated the trademark was legitimate, backed by the full authority of the federal government.
When Journalism Fought Back
The American Newspaper Publishers Association assembled an emergency legal team to challenge what they called "the most ridiculous assault on free expression in our nation's history." Their strategy was surprisingly simple: prove that "OK" was too common to trademark.
The legal team spent months documenting every conceivable use of "OK" in American culture. They collected thousands of examples from letters, advertisements, government documents, and even children's schoolwork. Their final brief included 847 pages of evidence that "OK" belonged to everyone and no one.
Meanwhile, Fitzpatrick hired additional lawyers and expanded his campaign. He began invoicing book publishers, magazine editors, and even government agencies. The Post Office received a bill for using "OK" on postal forms.
The Word That Couldn't Be Owned
The case reached federal court in March 1894, where Judge Samuel Morrison faced an unprecedented question: Could someone own a word that millions of Americans used daily?
The hearing featured testimony from linguists, historians, and ordinary citizens about their relationship with "OK." A Boston schoolteacher testified that her students had been using the word since before Fitzpatrick was born. A Civil War veteran claimed he'd heard soldiers saying "OK" at Gettysburg.
Fitzpatrick's lawyers argued that trademark law contained no exception for common words, and that their client had followed proper procedures. The newspaper coalition countered that allowing the trademark would criminalize normal human communication.
The Quiet Burial of a Legal Monster
Judge Morrison never issued a formal ruling. Instead, he quietly convinced the Patent Office to "review" Fitzpatrick's trademark application, leading to its withdrawal six months later. The official reason cited "administrative irregularities," but legal scholars suspected the government wanted to avoid setting a precedent that could weaponize the English language.
Fitzpatrick accepted an undisclosed settlement from the newspaper association and agreed never to discuss the case publicly. The entire episode was systematically erased from legal records, appearing only in scattered newspaper archives and private correspondence.
The Phrase That Almost Wasn't Free
Today, "OK" remains one of the most widely recognized words on Earth, used in virtually every language and context imaginable. But for eighteen months in the 1890s, it was private property, owned by a Boston printer who nearly turned everyday conversation into a legal liability.
The Fitzpatrick case established informal precedents that still influence trademark law. Modern applications for common words face much stricter scrutiny, and the Patent Office maintains a "public vocabulary" list of terms considered too universal to trademark.
When Two Letters Almost Ruled America
The story serves as a reminder that even our most basic forms of communication exist at the mercy of bureaucratic competence. A single tired clerk's mistake came within months of fragmenting the English language into trademarked territories, where speaking naturally could trigger lawsuits.
Fitzpatrick died in 1912, taking most details of his legal adventure to the grave. But somewhere in Boston's legal archives, buried among decades of forgotten cases, sits the paperwork for America's most absurd trademark—proof that for a brief, strange moment in history, saying "OK" almost wasn't OK at all.
