Harris Tweed the trade mark should have been granted exclusively to Harris, the Orb Trade Mark was granted. The Harris Tweed Association, a voluntary body, was formed to protect both the use of the Orb Trade Mark and to protect the use of the name ‘Harris Tweed’ from imitations. The original definition attached to the Orb Trade Mark stated that: Harris Tweed means a tweed, hand-spun, hand-woven and dyed by the crofters and cottars in the Outer Hebrides. In 1993, a new statutory body to guard the Orb Trade Mark, the Harris Tweed Authority, replaced the original Harris Tweed Association. Also in
United Kingdom trade mark law However, any word or name that was in use as a trade mark before the passing of the Act (in August 1875) was entitled to registration, whether or not the mark fulfilled these criteria. In 1883 the Patents and Trade Marks Act substantially revised trade mark law, reducing the cost of application, and included the facility to register "fancy words not in common use" and "brands" as new marks for the first time. Further major trademark acts were passed in 1888 and 1905 (which both further refined definitions of a trade mark), 1919 (which separated the trade mark register into