

Orange background color is a registered trademark of The Hershey Company - guynamedloren
http://s3.amazonaws.com/madebyloren/images/10/orange_hershey.jpg

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guynamedloren
Just discovered this interesting tidbit of information and thought it would be
worth sharing. I've learned a fair share about trademarks/IP, but I had no
idea something as vague as a color for a candy bar wrapper could be
registered. A quick Google search + Wikipedia resulted in some newly acquired
knowledge: "A trademark is typically a name, word, phrase, logo, symbol,
design, image, or a combination of these elements. There is also a range of
non-conventional trademarks [1] comprising marks which do not fall into these
standard categories, such as those based on color, smell, or sound."
Apparently there have actually been lawsuits over the color orange [2].

So my question is - what happens when _all_ of the commonly used colors are
registered?

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-conventional_trademark>

[2]
[http://www.foodliabilitylaw.com/2011/01/articles/trademark-2...](http://www.foodliabilitylaw.com/2011/01/articles/trademark-2/hershey-
and-mars-battle-over-the-color-orange/)

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muyyatin
If you can only apply for one color to be trademarked at a time, it would cost
quite a bit (plus any legal fees to defend it in the future).

