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Shape of Coke bottle wins trademark registration in Japan

hosted.ap.org — The familiar curvaceous shape of the Coca-Cola bottle is now officially registered as a trademark in Japan - this nation's first such recognition of a three-dimensional bottle form devoid of any lettering.

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  • jivatmanx, on 05/31/2008, -11/+60Time to trademark the shape of a chair.
    • Nevuk, on 05/31/2008, -4/+15Screw chairs, I'm trademarking tentacles.
    • foltaggio, on 07/11/2008, -3/+3I'm trademarking the shape of the letter P.
      • shoutsmurmurs, on 05/31/2008, -1/+26lease don't. That would be comletely ointless.
        • Jeffler, on 05/31/2008, -0/+3You know spelling is bad on the internet when it took about four reads to see why you were dugg up.
    • Ovalteen, on 05/31/2008, -3/+10I'm trademarking the silhouette outline of a person. 6.5 billion people could potentially owe me money every time they cast a shadow. Not to mention every male restroom door.
    • JettaMan, on 05/31/2008, -2/+2Right on. Coke deserves it.
  • alen3K, on 05/31/2008, -13/+4lol
  • ZimbuTheMonkey, on 05/31/2008, -3/+90The first thing I think of when I see that bottle is "Coca-Cola", so I guess it's appropriate.
  • ursername180, on 05/31/2008, -3/+12Just looking at the shape of the bottle makes me thirsty.
    • crapuccino, on 05/31/2008, -1/+3Just looking at the shape of the bottle makes my teeth melt.
  • DesertSquirrel, on 05/31/2008, -7/+17Finally some precedent for my trademark case on the circle.
  • shwerm601, on 05/31/2008, -9/+2stupid
  • Piontek, on 05/31/2008, -8/+2Why was that even necessary? Coca-Cola?...
  • DroppedGT, on 05/31/2008, -9/+2BIG NEWS OMFG
  • Jeffler, on 05/31/2008, -1/+30No big deal. If I recall correctly, this has been the case in North America for a while.
    • RG13, on 05/31/2008, -0/+2FTA: "The bottle became a registered trademark in the U.S. in 1960, and is likewise honored in Russia, Great Britain, China and other nations, according to Coca-Cola."
    • krinthekuz, on 09/16/2008, -0/+3yes, and the US also has trade dress law too. for instance, TGI fridays has the trade dress of the red/white stripes with all the "flair" (the 300 buttons on each employees apron). it is unlawful for another restaurant of similar menu/pricing to use red/white stripes and "flair"

      market recognition is huge with that bottle. when you see it, you don't think "man, that looks like a pepsi/sprite/mntn dew/gatorade/tea/beer" you think "hey, it's the coke bottle." that's exactly what trademark law is for.
  • Jeffler, on 05/31/2008, -5/+6BTW, to anyone who plans on using any memes below me...
    I just came back from trademarking them all.
    • ufia, on 05/31/2008, -4/+3In Soviet Russia, BOTTLES TRADEMARKS YOU ***** LIVE
      • ZPWeeks, on 05/31/2008, -0/+1In Soviet Russia, Soviet Russia attaches itself to your crappy new meme!
  • Dustyb, on 05/31/2008, -1/+10If you look at cokes logo it actually has a bottle in it, so why is this such huge news?

    Oh and here is there full logo: http://artfiles.art.com/images/-/Coca-Cola-Tin-Sig ...
  • gtluke, on 05/31/2008, -2/+15its trademarked in america too, who cares?
  • TotalHalibut, on 05/31/2008, -1/+5This is somewhat common-place, in Western nations. I suppose it's something of a big deal that it's finally happened in Japan. but I'd hardly call it exciting news.
  • aegis9975, on 05/31/2008, -1/+11I think its appropriate, the fluted bottle with concave pinch toward the bottom has been a well recognized Coca-Cola trademarked bottle design for decades.
  • linux4evr, on 05/31/2008, -7/+4Capitalist Scum!
  • WCL23, on 05/31/2008, -2/+9For those wondering why this is such big news, it's because most of the western world has allowed the trademark of distinctive product related shapes for decades, and Japan has finally caught up. Considering the size of Japan's economy, and their clout in world manufacturing, it will certainly effect how they design their products from now on. Rip off's are common in Asia, and to some extent, in Japan too. That just got a LOT harder.
  • JasonCox, on 05/31/2008, -1/+7I cant argue with this one, that bottle is a huge symbol of the Coke brand
  • Mahoney07, on 05/31/2008, -1/+6Am I the only one that's fine with this? I think that shape is famous and people think CocaCola when seeing it.
  • Jumpeplowski, on 05/31/2008, -2/+2I never noticed the wrapper went so deep into the sides of the bottle.

    Dugg for learning something new.
  • thenonhacker, on 05/31/2008, -5/+1I have filed a trademark registration for the Hexagon.
  • exomni, on 05/31/2008, -6/+2Nice to see Japan defending innovation...

    That's right, a design over 120 years old is apparently now "innovation" that needs to be "protected".

    Don't y'all love copyright law?
    • DigitAl56K, on 05/31/2008, -1/+3Trademarks are not copyright law.

      Wikipedia quote:

      "trademark or trade mark (represented by the symbol ™)[1] or mark is a distinctive sign or indicator of some kind which is used by an individual, business organization or other legal entity to identify uniquely the source of its products and/or services to consumers, and to distinguish its products or services from those of other entities. A trademark is a type of intellectual property, and typically a name, word, phrase, logo, symbol, design, image, or a combination of these elements.[2] There is also a range of non-conventional trademarks comprising marks which do not fall into these standard categories."

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark

      I.e. that bottle is a mark of Coca Cola's trade so long as the company is in business, uses and protects the mark.
      • exomni, on 06/01/2008, -0/+1Information is not property, but we realized a while ago that in order to protect business, we should treat certain pieces of information as if they were property, in order to induce more innovation and protect innovators. That was the justification for what we know today as "intellectual property". Now we have companies like Disney enslaving properties like Mickey Mouse, who has long since entered the public consciousness and become part of our history, and defended even his first cartoon rigorously. I couldn't even draw a picture of Mickey Mouse in a history textbook without going through Disney. That's like not being able to draw a picture of Hamlet, or Huckleberry Fin.

        The fact is, the laws we once had to protect business and innovation are being stretched by big business and lobbyists into unrecognizable frankenstein monsters holding our cultural history hostage. We now have a culture where all our information is privately owned, and as such we have poor education, we have wanton ignorance, and the public no longer owns its own culture.

        By the time the cartoons you watch today are in the public domain, it will be long after they are no longer profitable for whatever company owns them, and long after any excuse for "protecting innovation" runs dry, and long after you are dead.


        And you know the worst part? Innovation should be proceeding at a brisker pace every year. Every year should build, if in 1940 we had 1,000 inventions or books, in 2000 we should have millions of inventions or books. It should be exponential.

        Which means that the period of innovation, the period of rights to intellectual property, should be getting smaller with it, to foster more innovation. Instead, thanks to lobbyists at Disney and other such companies, they are getting larger, exponentially larger. Which stifles and suffocates innovation, rather than fostering it.
  • surfslider, on 05/31/2008, -5/+0completely lame.
    http://tinyurl.com/5g5g2o
  • DigitusAnonymus, on 05/31/2008, -3/+0I'm gonna trademark the shape of the United States. So ya'll pay me monies and me goes openin up a studio for I is becoming music executive and producer.
    • Jeffler, on 05/31/2008, -0/+1you is also failing.
      • DigitusAnonymus, on 05/31/2008, -1/+0You tell me this becuz I'm black? I knoes Barack, and he is black too and he'll be your presidents.
  • Flashman, on 05/31/2008, -0/+1If one can trademark distinctive 2D forms, it's logical that one can trademark distinctive 3D forms. (Registration for hypersolids next?)
  • wonderbriefs, on 06/02/2008, -0/+1Interesting to see how some people perceive this as an injustice. It's not like Coke registered the trademark of all bottles. They registered the trademark of their uniquely-shaped bottle. Let's stop making assumptions here.
  •  

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