Posted by Duncan on February 07, 2010 at 19:14:41 user Duncan.
Just playing Devil's advocate, I suppose...
If you search "Swallows and Amazons" in Google you get approx. 100,000 hits. Of course, many are people selling books or DVDs, but there are a multitude of other uses: there's a tour company in Brasil, a bookshop in Belfast, etc, etc. There are several references to 'a Swallows and Amazons summer' and a 'Swallows and Amazons holiday' (many guesthouses in the Lakes promise such a thing!) Is it really possible that the phrase 'Swallows and Amazons' can be a trademark when it has become such a part of our culture?
Furthermore, if other books were similarly protected, would we ever have been able to learn what books the Swallows took with them to the island? Titty might have taken a 'well-known work of fiction relating to desert-island life', etc.
Does it relate to other titles, characters and locations, does anyone know? Presumably nobody is entering dangerous territory if they were to enquire whether the diver they are seeing is a Great Northern? It is perhaps safer to refer to one's Christmas Holiday or Winter Vacation... I never knew as a child the potentially stormy waters me and my brother and friends may have been entering when we trekked to 'Swallowdale' or 'Amazon Creek', or waded out to 'Swallow Island'...
I'm sure there are rational reasons for making the title a trademark, which somebody will explain! This post is intended primarily for gentle comic effect!