25 Examples of Non Traditional Trademarks

1. Door handles that have a special shape or lettering. The handles of Dunkin’, Hair Cuttery, and REI are some examples of door handle trademarks.
2. Beer tap handles. Almost every kind of beer tap handle tells you more than just the name of the brand. It conveys more of a message about the beer and the beer manufacturer.
3. Packaging. Within packaging there’s a lot of different variations, for example the shape of a Coke bottle and the design and shape of an Altoids tin.
4. Building shapes. Famous examples are the Empire State Building and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.
5. Uniforms or costumes. Certain restaurant server uniforms, the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders uniform, and the uniform of a US Postal Service carrier are all registered trademarks.
6. Sounds, including the NBC chimes and the tone that Siri makes.
7. Jingles. The Nationwide jingle “Nationwide is on your side” is a registered trademark, as is the McDonald’s jingle.
8. Color overall or as applied to a product or service. Tiffany’s robin’s egg blue, UPS’ use of the color brown, and T-Mobile’s magenta are just some of the many examples of color trademarks.
9. A restaurant or store interior. Consistent format and layout among multiple stores that is also creative and unique can be protected and registered as a non-traditional trademark. The inside of a Chipotle and the interior of an Apple store are examples.
10. Lighting. Holiday Inn Hotels use consistent colorful green lighting in particular ways to light up the front of the building. That’s a visual brand cue, which means that it’s functioning to indicate the source of the services—the whole purpose of a trademark. Car headlight configurations. Headlights and taillights which have different patterns, shapes, layouts, and designs can be registered trademarks.
11. Sign shapes. Next time you drive past a Denny’s or a Hampton Inn, look at the shape of the sign, and that is a registered trademark.
12. Scent. There aren’t many, but there’s a very well-known one: the scent of Play-doh, a registered trademark.
13. Footwear, specifically the configuration of the footwear or something about the footwear itself. The pattern on the sole of a Birkenstock is a registered trademark. Some Nike shoe configurations such as Air Jordans, Air Max, etc. as well as the configuration of the leather pieces, the swoosh, and the design of the shoe is a registered trademark. Louboutin owns a very well-known trademark registration for their red lacquer shoe soles.
14. Stitching. The stitching on a Levi’s pocket is one of the oldest non-traditional trademark registrations that I’m aware of. Lululemon has some interesting ones for the shape that they use consistently in their stitching patterns.
15. Sports uniforms. The pinstripes of the New York Yankees are registered, and many football teams have the color patterns from their jerseys and or helmets registered with the USPTO.
16. Texture. There is or was a trademark registration for wine that came in a bottle with a bumpy leather label, and that texture of the bumpy leather label was registered with the USPTO.
17. Shapes of food products. Many candies—Hershey’s Kiss, for instance—as well as many chip and snack products.
18. A carpet pattern. There’s an airport that has a well-known iconic carpet design throughout the airport, and they registered the design of the carpet as a trademark.
19. Fabric patterns. Burberry owns a very well-known example of that.
20. Mascots. The actual three-dimensional design of the costume that a mascot wears for sporting events, as well as mascots that represent businesses.
21. Motion. A motion mark is when something makes an animated or other type of design on a software or video screen. Think of the movement of the Windows logo when you boot up a Windows computer.
22. Makeup. The makeup designs on the faces of the performers in the band Kiss—who have an incredible branding and trademark portfolio.
23. Trade dress that can function as a trademark. Lamborghini’s doors that open going up, that motion and design of the doors is a registered trademark.
24. The University of Arkansas owns a registered trademark for the cheer “Woo pig suey, woo pig suey, woo pig suey, Razorbacks”.
25. The marching ducks of the Peabody Hotel. At the Peabody hotel, they march the ducks down from the penthouse on a red carpet into the fountain of the lobby, and then they march them back up to their penthouse every day. And this process is a registered trademark, believe it or not.

Bonus: A Wisconsin restaurant with goats grazing on its grass roof is a registered trademark, so that if you were to come across a restaurant that had goats on a roof, it would indicate that it was part of this family of restaurants.

The lesson here is that anything could be a trademark, and businesses, brands, and people have extreme creativity when it comes to all types of things that indicate the source of their products or services.