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Bristol Rugby will be renamed as Bristol Bears ahead of their return to the Premiership next season.

The Championship winners have announced the changes along with a new kit and logo with owner Steve Lansdown insisting that the name will help Bristol target a “global audience”.

Read the full story on the announcement here. Here's the story before the announcement was made.

This follows news that Bristol Sport Limited, the parent company of Bristol Rugby, have registered a trademark for the name Bristol Bears Rugby Club.

Bristol Bears Limited has also been registered as a company, with Companies House, with current Bristol Rugby chief operating officer Mark Tainton registered as director of the company.

In the past week rumours have circulated on social media that the Greene King IPA Championship winners and soon to be Premiership club are to rebrand themselves as Bristol Bears.

There have been leaked images online of a possible new home and away kit, with a new Bristol Bears logo on it.

At this time BristolLive cannot confirm whether the images are legitimate nor can we say with full certainty the club is changing its name.

However, we can confirm Bristol Sport Limited, based out of Ashton Gate Stadium, have successfully registered the trademark name with the UK Intellectual Property Office.

The UK trademark number is UK00003276060.

You can view the official application here.

The filling date for the application was December 8, 2017, and the date of entry into the register was March 30, 2018, just two weeks ago.

The trademark covers items including (Class 41) entertainment; sporting and cultural activities, education, arranging and conducting events, shows, conferences, exhibitions and seminars, sporting facilities, games and events.

That sounds an awful lot like running a professional rugby club.

It also includes (Class 43), provision to provide food and drink and (Class 35) retail services covering a vast range of products you would find in the current Bristol Rugby shop.

Several other classes are included covering further items sold by the club and including (Class 16) printed matter - like match day programmes.

In regards to the Companies House registration, Bristol Bears Limited is registered to the the current Bristol Rugby training ground offices in Henbury.

The company's (company number 10792687) nature of business is stated as "other sports activities" and was incorporated on May 26, 2017.

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It should be noted that Bristol Sport do run the Bristol Bears Wheelchair Rugby team, which this could potentially apply to, however that seems highly unlikely at this time.

Bristol Bears Wheelchair Rugby Club launched in September 2017 and is also part of Bristol Sport.