Sound trademark

[11] There are typically four to six steps involved in creating a sound logo:[12][13] Once completed, the audio elements should be managed just like the rest of a company's brand assets.

[19] "For instance, an academic study that took place in a Scotland supermarket found that sales of wines displayed side-by-side and priced similarly responded to music.

[21] Unibail Rodamco upscale malls have an audio identity that is adapted to their parking lots, entryways, walkways, even chairs and plant walls and extends into their advertising.

[22] Sound design for mobile phones, ATMs, laptop computers, PDAs, and countless other devices can improve the user experience by making tasks easier and more enjoyable.

A study commissioned by audio branding specialist PHMG provided insight into consumer perceptions of on-hold marketing.

An example of this would be Pharrell Williams's 2005 song 'Can I Have It Like That' (featuring Gwen Stefani), with the chorus which echoed the Burger King advertising slogan "Have It Your Way".

It involves the creation of brand-congruent voice and music tracks, which are used by companies to communicate marketing messages to customers over the telephone.

Different attributes of voice and music, including tempo, tone, pitch and volume, are all taken into account in order to create messaging that reinforce the values conveyed through a company's visual branding.

Negative perceptions were traditionally attached to on-hold marketing but a more recent survey conducted by CNN found that 70% of callers in the United States who are made to hold the line in silence will hang up within 60 seconds, while further research by PHMG found 73 percent of consumers want to hear something more than beeps or silence on hold.

In Shield Mark BV vs Joost Kist (case C-283/01) the EcJ basically repeats the criteria from Sieckmann v German Patent Office (case C-273/00) that graphical representation, preferably means by images, lines or characters, and that the representation must be clear, precise, self-contained, easily accessible, intelligible, durable and objective.

[34][35] This definition generally encompasses sound marks, and therefore an applicant for a CTM may use musical notation to graphically represent their trademark.

The sound of a dog barking or the crash of surf cannot be recorded in musical notation and sonograms were not accepted by the OHIM trademark registry.

This was the fairly strict test applied by the US Trademark Trial and Appeal Board in the case of General Electric Broadcasting Co., 199 USPQ 560, in relation to the timed toll of a ship's bell clock.

Nine of Harley-Davidson's competitors filed oppositions against the application, arguing that cruiser-style motorcycles of various brands use the same crankpin V-twin engine which produces the same sound.

[37] Other companies have been more successful in registering their distinctive sounds: MGM and their lion's roar; the NBC chimes; famous basketball team the Harlem Globetrotters and their theme song "Sweet Georgia Brown"; Intel and the three-second chord sequence used with the Pentium processor; THX and its "Deep Note"; Federal Signal Corporation and the sound of their "Q2B" fire truck siren; AT&T and the spoken letters "AT&T" accompanied by music; RKO with a combined moving image and sound mark depicting the RKO Pictures radio tower transmitting a Morse-code like signal; and 20th Century Studios with the famous fanfare composed by Alfred Newman.