The sweet, musky smell of success
Hasbro gets a trademark for the scent of its classic children’s toy, Play-Doh
Sweet, slightly musky. Vanilla-like.
Slight overtones of cherry. Natural smell of a salted, wheat-based dough. Behold, Play-Doh. Behold, childhood. Behold, the newest trademarked scent.
Hasbro became the latest company inducted into the small club of brands with a scent registered by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. As of Friday, the Play-Doh scent trademark is one of 13 active registrations, according to a spokesman from the patent and trademark office, joining the ranks of a strawberry-scented toothbrush and ukuleles that come with a whiff of pina colada.
Invented in 1956, Play-Doh has wedged its way into children’s fingernails and living room carpets ever since. Now, the company has convinced the U.S. trademark office
that consumers specifically link the Play-Doh smell to Hasbro’s neon modelling clay. That alone is a squishy feat.
“The law tries to make it relatively difficult,” said Polk Wagner, an expert on intellectual property law at the University of Pennsylvania law school. “Not everybody can say they have the world’s most distinctive scent.”
According to the patent and trademark office, scents that serve a utilitarian purpose — like the scent of perfume or an air freshener — serve a function and cannot be registered as trademarks. The guidelines note that the “amount of evidence required to establish that a scent or fragrance functions as a mark is substantial.”
As for patents, scents can be patented and are generally fall into categories for cleaning and perfume compositions.
Scents, colours and sounds — like the chime heard on the NBC television network — can be trademarked, so long as the companies or individuals behind them can prove that consumers have strong associations with them. Companies can provide surveys and studies demonstrating how consumers link certain smells or sounds with a product. Still, trademarks like logos or images — like the Nike swoosh — might make those ties more obvious, Wagner said.
According to the patent and trademark office, other active trademarks for scents, smells, odours and fragrances include the “flowery musk scent” used in Verizon stores and a bubble-gum scent used for shoes and flip-flops by Grendene. And jewelry company Le Vian trademarked a chocolate scent for its stores.
Wagner said Hasbro’s trademark could be used to cut down confusion for consumers if other companies or individuals make products with a scent similar to Play-Doh’s. And it could provide Hasbro with
an edge over competitors that sell toys “similar in function to PlayDoh, but are not called Play-Doh,” Wagner said.
Before the scent’s trademark, Hasbro debuted a Play-Doh fragrance
in 2006 for the toy’s 50th birthday. The “eau de Play-Doh” rolled out just before Mother’s Day and came in a clear, 30 mL spray bottle.