Every product and service we utilize daily has its uniqueness. The individuality of each product and service depends on the Trademark that the company provides. A traditional and non-traditional trademark helps a product or good to stand unique from others and define its identity. It can be a logo, a design, a symbol, or whatever that should be capable of distinguishing a company’s product or service from other companies.
Traditional vs. Non-traditional Trademarks
A trademark is an intellectual property that contains a unique logo or design to protect the brand’s identity. The trademarks fall into two categories: Traditional and Non-traditional (Non-conventional). Traditional trademarks are logos, symbols, designs, names, etc.
However, non-traditional trademarks depend on defining a brand through sound, taste, shapes, scent, color, etc. They help the brand to reach people sooner and attract more engagement. For example, a unique sound comes along with the logo of Netflix comes under the category of non-conventional trademarks. Whenever we hear the distinctive sound of Netflix, we can easily identify it without seeing its name or logo.
This is how non-traditional trademarks help brands to reach the audience. Let us look at each type of non-traditional Trademark in detail.
- Sound Trademark: A sound trademark is a sound or music created uniquely to define a brand. Companies are popularly using sound trademarks to stand unique from others. Though sound trademarks have faced some issues with trademark registration, different countries adapted ways to deal with them. Nokia tune, Intel sound, BMW sounds, etc., are well-known Non-traditional trademark examples.
- Color Trademark: A color trademark uses colors to identify the goods and services of a company. A specific color representing a brand will stay on people’s minds for longer. Color trademarks can consist of a single color or a combination of two or more colors to represent the brand—for example, Cadbury Purple, Barbie Pink, Tiffany Blue, Qualitex Green-Gold, etc.
- 3D Marks: One of the unique ways to distinguish a brand from others is to use a 3d trademark. A 3d trademark depends on the shape and packaging of the product. Some of the remarkable examples of 3d trademarks are Toblerone chocolate packaging, the shape of Hershey’s Kisses chocolates, Zippo lighter shape, the Coca-Cola bottle contour, and more. Since 3d trademark designs are impressive, they have been emerging tremendously across many countries.
- Motion Trademark: The utilization of technology helps in creating innovative and outstanding trademarks for brands. Instead of using images as trademarks, today’s technology can create unique animations to define a brand. Motion trademarks are highly capable of gaining trademark protection because of their unique sequence of movements. Nokia’s hands are joining animation, Microsoft Windows opening animation, and Netflix opening motion is notable examples of motion trademarks.
- Scent Trademark: Smell is considered one of the prominent senses in the human body. Smell helps in retaining the memories of specific events in one’s life. For instance, whenever we smell a perfume we used long ago, we will once again go back to that period and cherish the memories. Likewise, if a particular scent represents a product, it will remarkably stay in consumers’ minds for a very long period. Strawberry-scented toothbrushes, mint-smelling pain-relief patches, bubblegum-scented shoes, etc., are some non-traditional trademark examples that use scent as trademarks.
- Some other trademarks: Apart from the above trademark examples, a few other non-conventional trademarks are available. They are hologram trademark (e.g., Trademark of American Express hologram), taste trademark, texture trademark, position trademark, and more. Though many challenges are associated with implementing and registering non-conventional trademarks, they help differentiate your brands from all your competitors.
Registration of non-traditional trademarks
As we discussed above, both conventional and non-conventional trademarks may face challenges with registration. Presenting a graphical representation is necessary to register a trademark, which is impossible in the case of scent, texture, and taste trademarks. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) expects the graphical representation to be precise, intelligible, objective, self-contained, easily accessible, and durable. Since these expectations may appear quite challenging for various non-conventional trademarks, a liberal means of interpretation is expected in registration to utilize a wide variety of non-traditional trademarks and stand out uniquely.
To sum up
Unconventional trademarks will take some time to come into practice because of various factors such as legalities, marketing practices, etc. However, when put into practice, unconventional trademarks will help many brands stand unique from their competitors and grab people’s attention. It is expected to investigate more in these non-traditional trademark registers to help brands achieve a standard, impress their consumers, create a unique position for them, and eliminate the chance of competitors using similar trademarks.