https://playdoh.hasbro.com/en-us
Did you know… that a scent can be registered as a trademark?! We didn’t either! I mean… can you think of a scent that immediately reminds you of a specific product or brand?
Since 1955, children have created fun shapes with Play-Doh modeling clay in their homes and used it as a learning tool in their classrooms. Hasbro, the owner of Play-Doh, filed an application to register the scent as a trademark on February 14th, and stated that it has a “unique scent formed through the combination of a sweet, slightly musky, vanilla-like fragrance with slight overtones of cherry, and the natural smell of a salted, wheat-based dough”. There really isn’t any other clay or product out there that smells like Play-doh! Because the scent is so recognizable, Hasbro’s application to register the scent as a principal trademark was accepted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
With more than 2 million registered trademarks in the U.S., less than a dozen are scent trademarks. The USPTO makes sure that not just anything can be trademarked, and it is even more difficult for anyone to trademark a scent. It needs to be very distinct. To qualify, according to The Wall Street Journal, “you have to show that a fragrance serves no important practical function other than to help identify and distinguish a brand”. This means that perfumes and fragrances can’t be trademarked, but the distinct scent of a well-known shoe or popular facial cream can possibly be trademarked as a scent mark.
“Hasbro’s Play-Doh scent is one of the best-known, most unique and instantly recognizable scent trademarks in the world, and has been serving as a trademark for decades,” said Catherine M.C. Farrelly, Hasbro’s lawyer that filed the application.
We’re happy to hear that the Play-doh scent that we all know and remember as a child will never change!
#OwnYourMark #MakeYourMark
Written by: Teresa Nguyen