Product Design Must Be Unique

For a few weeks, I’ve been talking about how the shape of a building can function as a trademark, called trade dress, and this idea can transfer to any product, like beverages, staplers, or computers. But not every design is suitable for registration.

For example, the TTAB refused to register a particular modular hotel building design as a trade dress, because they found that it’s very common to use modular designs for hotel buildings. Think Crowne Plaza, Marriott, or the Westin. It’s not the shape of the building that tells consumers who operates each hotel, but rather the signage (or the scent inside, but that’s a discussion for another day).

So if you’re interested in registering the design of your product, packaging, or anything like that, be sure to it’s something that’s truly unique to avoid a long and frustrating challenge.

Contrast the Hotel Hilton buildings in this post, which did NOT register with the trademark office, with the building in my July 27 post about Seminole Hard Rock, which DID register.

Hotel Hilton buildings are not distinctive enough to earn trade dress protection.