Besides words and logos, what kinds of things can be trademarks?
Product configurations (or “trade dress”), such as the distinctive shape of a Coca Cola® bottle or the “twin-kidney” grille of BMW cars, may serve as trademarks. A sound, like the well-known NBC chimes or the famous roar of the MGM lion, can be a trademark. One company even registered a scent—plumeria rose—as a trademark for its knitting yarn. Recently the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a color can be a trademark. The key is that the product shape, sound, scent, color or other device must serve to identify a product as coming from a particular source.
