Smell Of Fresh Cut Grass Trademarked

outlier writes: "One of the few things that couldn't be trademarked or patented has been scents. This has allowed companies to produce inexpensive perfumes that smell like expensive ones. That may change soon, as this article in The Times of London points out. A company just received a trademark for the "smell of fresh cut grass." They're making smelly tennis balls... "

You cut your grass - I sue you!

Is it just me, or is there a serious lack of thought put into legal systems these days? Has humankind finally built up so much history, tradition, and legal mish mash that we have totally abandoned common sense? I'm no legal expert but the point of patents are to protect IP for a certian amount of valuable time. Patent abuse is on a worldwide high because as I see it - with a population of 6 billion there is bound to be someone, or a group, or an entire species with your ideas. I really think that the patent laws need to be stripped out and rewritten in the USA. I know little about G.B. - but it sounds similar.

Not patent, you dummies!

Sheesh! They didn't get a patent, they got a trademark. And it only applies to tennis balls, so you're free to get a trademark on computers that smell of newly-mown grass, if you want. There's fourty-some-odd fields of enterprise, each of which has its own trademark namespace, so to speak.
-russ

ATTENTION: Trademark Not Patent.

Okay everyone take a deep breathe and reread the article. They aren't giving patents for natural smells but instead allowing companies to trademark the combination of their product and a particular smell (e.g. the smell of beer on a dart, the smell of grass on a tennis ball and smell of roses on tyres). This is very different from the company being giving a patent on the smell of grass.

PS: It is still an unsavory practice that may lead to an unwelcome trend in the future but in its current incarnation it isn't as bad as most slashdotters are making it out to be.

Re:Good Thing Deity's Have Deep Pockets

Trademarked, not patented.. All it really means is that other companies can't make their competing product smell like freshly mown grass.. Silly, sure, but not a terrible legal catastrophe that would prevent fine, upstanding Brits from mowing their lawns..

Not nearly as bad as the copy of 'Method of Exercising a Cat' I have on my cube wall, a patent from 1996 that makes patent infringement out of the time honored tradition that is getting your cat chase the beam of a flashlight..

trade dress

Okay. Some marketing team for a tennis ball company was trying to come up with a means of making their tennis balls more distinct from the competition. Every tennis ball that meets the specs for tournament play is pretty much the same, so if you are trying to sell a "brand-name" ball at a higher price, you gotta do something to make it stand out. Using a different color is no good, because people expect tennis balls to be a certain color. If it is not day-glow green (or, in a few cases, yellow or orange), it won't be used.

Therefore, they decided, "why don't we make our tennis balls smell different than all the other ones? The smell of fresh-cut grass will remind people of the Wimbeton tournament, let's go with that. Oh, and we better get a trademark for tennis balls that smell like fresh grass clippings, or the market will be flooded with cheapie knock-offs."

That's all there is to the story... no need to get your undies in a bunch over smells being "patented". It ain't happening. The editors at /. should be a little embarrassed that they ran this.

It's a trademark, *not* a patent or a copyright

There seems to be a huge amount of confusion over the difference between a trademark, a patent, and a copyright.

A trademark only means that you have linked your product together with a particular symbol. The company in question is claiming that their use of the freshly-cut-grass smell is theirs exclusively to link to tennis balls. It does not mean that they have a copyright on the smell of grass or that they've patented the process for creating that smell. If at this moment you decide to create a perfume that smells like freshly-cut-grass, I doubt that this trademark would prevent you from doing so. I am not a lawyer, but as far as I can tell, this trademark only applies to the specific use of the scent on tennis balls. Their acquiring the trademark means that no other company can attempt to sell tennis balls with a marketing campaign that emphasize the scent.

Other common trademarks include the name "Walkman" for Sony's small portale stereo. Even though just about everybody calls the things "walkmans," only Sony can market the product using the name. "Kleenex" and "Popsicle" are also trademarked, even though these are also commonly used by your average Joe to indicate the type of product rather than the particular brand. Having a trademark protects you against competitors who may try to name their product in order to confuse consumers in the marketplace.

What makes this so interesting is that it's apparently the first attempt to trademark a scent by linking it to a product rather than an image or a name.

Day old grass

I'm gonna trademark dayold cut grass and give them a run!

Stop the World! I want to get off!

Maybe there's a problem with someone trademarking the smell of freshly cut grass... Maybe it's wrong to patent a smell...

What gets me is WHY IN GOD'S NAME would anyone want lawn-scented tennis balls in the first place? What the freak is the point of scented tennis balls? I mean, their default rubbery smell is just fine.

I have to figure this out - bear with me. If I were an avid tennis player (and I'm and SO not!) I would tend to keep my tennis balls in my gym bag - along with socks, a towel, sneakers, whathaveyou. It would probably get pretty rank in there after a few days in the trunk..

Maybe deodorant scented tannis balls wouldn't be such a bad idea - but grass? Why? The smell of grass does nothing to offset the smell of sweat and feet. Lemons maybe, perhaps 'Summer Meadow' or some other MegaMarketting BS... Possibly the ubiquitous PINE. But grass? I just don't get it.

[rant=on]
On a side note: I saw something in the super market the other day, that I found both fall-down-funny, and horrific at the same time.

Vanilla-scented-candle-scented-air-freshening- spray! Think that through for a minute. A spray scented to smell like a candle, scented to smell like vanilla. My GF had to drag me out of the chemical isle, because I couldn't stop staring at this stupid thing...

In retrospect, it was a great way to make a geek's head explode. It's just one of those things, like an endless loop or an infinite recursion - like telling a [insert ethnic group] to stand in the corner of the Oval Office...

WHY?? Why make something that smells like something that smells like something else?? Why artifically scent something to smell like something that is artficially scented to smell like something natural?

And isn't the point of an air-deodorizer to de-odorize the air? How can you de-odorize something by adding new odors to it?
[rant=off]

Sometimes I think people come up with these ideas on a bet. "Hey Joe, I bet you can't get people to buy tennis balls that smell like their LAWN!" "Oh yeah, Frank? I bet I can!!"

Re:ATTENTION: Trademark Not Patent.

It's bad because the 'trademark' is on the product itself, not on any particular name or brand.

The idea with trademarks is that you can have competition, as long as people aren't misled by products which claim to be brand X but aren't. If you buy Coca-Cola(tm) you know what you are getting.

However, with a trademark on the smell, nobody else can make grass-smelling tennis balls. Not even if they call them something else and make it clear that they are a different manufacturer. The trademark laws are meant to protect consumers, but here it is consumers who are losing out due to lack of competition.

It's funny how sensible practices like trademarks, patents and so on always seem to degenerate into 'monopoly for sale' schemes.

Re:Trademark?

Your argument is that trademarks are for brands and slogans. Text. Given.

What about logos? Obviously you can trademark them.

Why? Company logos, names, slogans etc. that are trademark-able are unique identifying signatures of an individual, group, or corporation that that individual, group, or corporation should be entitled to protect.

A textual trademark is a linguistic expression of a signature. It might be spoken, written, or translated into foreign languages. Likewise, a company logo is a visual expression of a signature. It could be drawn, photocopied, or made into an enormous sign. There is little argument that these two types of "signatures" should be able to be protected.

If you think about this stuff in terms of a trademark-able signature, things really start making more sense. Tactile, auditory, olfactory, and gustatory signatures should be entitled for protectection just as much as visual and linguistic signatures are. Quite some years ago, courts finally gave into the auditory trademark issue and allowed trademark of signatures such as (HELLO YOU'RE ALL STUPID FOR MISSING THESE) the Intel sound and the godawful Nokia ring.

Come up with a good reason why Nokia should be able to trademark some beeps and a perfume company shouldn't be able to trademark its scent and then we'll argue against the court's decision. This has been a long time coming.

~GoRK

Re:Hmm, good idea...

> > So, if I patent the smell of horseshit, will Microsoft owe my a royalty
> > for each of their press releases?
>
> No, you'd need to register the smell of bullshit. Products themselves might
> fall under the protection of dogshit. There's a big difference you know.

OK, kids, let's get our shit straight.

Dogshit comes out of a dog's ass.
Bullshit comes out of a bull's ass.
So where does horseshit come from?

Right. Gates and Balmer. I mean, one read of their performances during the antitrust trial, how can anyone not realize they're a pair of Grade-A horses' asses?

Now if it's runny, slimy sheepshit you want, (as opposed to run-of-the-mill bullshit), try the goo spewing forth from the Freedom to Innovate Network [microsoft.com]. That's some serious shit.

But whether it's dogshit(tm), bullshit(R), sheepshit(c), or horseshit(pat. pending), like the man said, there is a difference.