It will now result to a breach of trademark if anyone, including musicians, Djs and online content creators uses the popular catchphrase, alaa, without permission from the owner.
This is after COTU secretary general Francis Atwoli trademarked his ‘alaa alaa alaa’ phrase and now owns the intellectual rights to the phrase until 2031.
Details in the trademark certificate showed that Mr Atwoli’s application to own the trademark was registered on July 1, 2021 and will be expiring on July 1, 2031.
Atwoli’s personal assistant Adams Barasa said that anyone will now have to seek Atwoli’s consent before using the phrase.
“Yes, they should get permission from him. And, any advert can’t use the word ‘alaa!’ unless they get his permission,” he said.
The phrase has been widely used by comical content creators after it became a hit when Atwoli made it as an exclamation during a TV interview with Jeff Koinange.