Your Own Coat of Arms

Heraldry through Tradition and Law: Who May Own a Coat of Arms?

A persistent misconception surrounds the subject of coats of arms: many people believe that bearing a coat of arms is exclusively reserved for the historical high nobility. However, legal history and heraldic tradition paint a very different picture. As early as the late Middle Ages, alongside noble coats of arms, the civic heraldry emerged, which was open to craftsmen, patricians, and scholars.

In modern legal systems, the coat of arms enjoys the same reliable protection as the civil name itself. According to established case law, a lawfully borne coat of arms falls under name protection. Everyone is free to create a new coat of arms or to bear a historically transmitted family or ruling coat of arms in accordance with heraldic rules. A coat of arms is thus not a relic of past privileges, but a protected symbol of individual and familial identity.

The Coat of Arms in Modern Everyday Life: Stylish Understatement

A coat of arms exerts its strongest effect where it is subtly yet naturally integrated into everyday life. It serves not merely as decoration but functions as a personal signet and visual seal:

On high-quality stationery and correspondence cards, an embossed coat of arms lends special weight to every handwritten line. Set into a gold or silver seal ring, it continues a centuries-old tradition with sealed documents. In business or publishing contexts, it adorns book covers, ex-libris for one’s own library, or the header of an ambitious web presence. Artfully framed on the wall of a study or on fireplace and desk accessories, it reminds one of the historical roots of the chosen house.

Legal Use, Trademark Protection, and Individual Coat of Arms Creation

The use of the provided coat of arms in both private and representative contexts is entirely at your discretion. You may utilise the high-resolution coat of arms files without any restrictions for all your personal needs—whether on fine stationery, personal business cards, artistically engraved seal rings, private invitations, ex-libris stamps for your home library, or as part of your private online presence. In all these areas of life, the coat of arms unfolds its full stylistic effect as a visible sign of a developed identity.

However, regarding legal protection and commercial trademark registration, an important formal distinction must be noted. The copyright to the regularly provided graphic designs remains with the Noble Society Institute. For this reason, it is not possible to register this standard coat of arms unchanged as a protected word-image trademark with the German Patent and Trademark Office (DPMA) or international trademark offices in your name, as the office requires proof of exclusive, sole authorship and exploitation rights.

If you wish to have a coat of arms exclusively for yourself, your family, or your business protected by trademark law, we offer tailored options for this. On one hand, we provide targeted modification of the existing historical coat of arms. Our heraldists will adapt the design to such an extent that an independent, protectable unique piece is created. The financial effort for this is based on the design complexity and typically amounts to around 80 euros.

On the other hand, you have the option of a complete new creation. Our heraldic studio designs a completely new family or company coat of arms, which is constructed precisely according to your personal symbolic wishes, colour specifications, and values in a heraldically correct manner. In this redesign, we transfer to you the exclusive usage rights in full, so that nothing stands in the way of an official and worldwide trademark registration. Depending on the desired level of detail and historical elaboration, the framework for such a heraldic new creation is approximately 200 euros.