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Thing To Come

Shape of Things To Come By David Orozco and James Conley May 12, 2008 How Apple's trademark for its iPod protects its brand—and offers lessons for other companies on how to leverage their intellectual property On Jan. 8, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted Apple Inc. a trademark for the three-dimensional shape of its iPod media player. This was more than a recognition of an innovative product design. It also was Apple’s capping piece in a multiyear marketing and legal campaign that pushed intellectual-property rights to new competitive advantage for the company. In many ways, Apple is benefiting from an expansion of U.S. trademark rights, beyond the traditional names, images, logos and two-dimensional symbols trademarks usually secure. In recent years, trademarks have been granted for such things as product shapes, colors and scents that companies can claim are linked exclusively to the source company in consumers’ minds. Shaping Up What’s Happening: Companies are obtaining new kinds of trademarks, securing exclusive rights to product features such as shape, scent and color. A vivid example came earlier this year, when Apple registered the three-dimensional shape of iPods as a trademark. Why It’s Important: Trademarks, unlike patents, can last forever, and so provide a potent new marketing weapon against rival products. Apple now has an open-ended ability to sue media-player makers and distributors when their products resemble too closely the shape of an iPod. *How It’s* Done: The Patent Office doesn’t make it easy to register a nontraditional trademark. But other companies can learn from Apple’s campaign, which involved multiple patents, trademarks and advertising. These nontraditional marks are difficult to obtain. But unlike more commonly used utility and design patents, which exist to cover functions and the ornamental look and feel of products and expire after a set number of years, trademarks can...