From our discussion of short verbal texts such as titles and slogans, it appears that the close interaction between trade mark law and copyright law we have traced as a feature of the earliest cases continues, in a different form, to be an undercurrent in assessing the fairness of protection currently afforded to them. The issues we have described are far from being merely a matter of brevity. “De minimis” questions in copyright are not only about whether length of textual material matters, or even about whether the investment in and economic worth of single words and phrases as commercial assets are undervalued if they are considered merely nugatory or trifles. Beyond such concerns, in an intricate set of connections within modern trade mark and copyright law, are to be found wider free speech issues to do with keeping the building blocks of language open and available for use in their ordinary meaning, including in not-precisely-defined commercial situations of use.