Coca-Cola

Intellectual Properties

By- Anmol Jain

Rishabh Jetly
Vishal Kashyap

Coca-Cola
Acarbonatedsoft drinksold in stores,
restaurants, andvending machinesin
more than 200 countries.
Produced byThe Coca-Cola
CompanyofAtlanta,Georgia.
Introduced in 1886.
Often referred to simply asCoke(a
registered trademark of The Coca-Cola
Company in the United States since
March 27, 1944).

Trade-Mark
The Coca-Cola company holds
registered trade-marks in its logo
and script design. Even the
distinctive shape of the Coke bottle
is trade-marked. These things are
trade-marks because they are
distinctive marks used by the
company to identify its goods and
services as being uniquely CocaColas.

Logo and Script Design

Design of Logo
The distinctive
features of the
logo design
are:
Name
Cursive script,
known as
Spencerian
script

1887-1890s Inserting the Trademark

These two important little words were added
to the tail of the first C.

1890-1891 Extra swirls

For just one year, our logo changed its appearance
quite dramatically with this extra swirly script.
Afterwards, the logo returned to its previous font.

1941-1960s Tail tweaked

In this version, the words Trademark Registered
moved out of the tail of the C and were noted as
Reg. US Pat Off below the Coca-Cola name.

1958-1960s A fishy shape

This period saw the introduction of the
Arciform or fishtail logo.

1969 That famous white wave

The Arden Square logo was unveiled to the world. In
this red box, the familiar Coca-Cola script was
underlined with the iconic white wave known as the
Dynamic Ribbon Device, which is still used to this
day.
2003 Keeping it real
With the introduction of the Coca-Cola... Real
campaign, the logos white wave was enhanced with
a shock of yellow and some floating bubbles.

2007 A classic design

A simple, yet bold, design with a
single white ribbon.

2011 125 years of happiness

Coca-Cola's 125th birthday logo sees bubbles
bursting from our famous contour bottle a
celebration of our past, present and future.

Trade Mark Protection

Trade-mark protection gives CocaCola the right to stop competitors
from passing off their goods and
services as Coca-Colas, and to be
compensated for any damage CocaCola may suffer as a result of this
unfair competition. Trade-mark
protection also protects consumers
by prohibiting confusing trademarks in the marketplace.

Copyright
Coca-Cola owns copyright in
the design of its bottles,
the design of its logos,
its advertising,
and generally anything it creates that can
be considered an original work requiring
creative effort.
For example, the famous Coca-Cola logo
and script design is an original artistic
creation that is protected by copyright law.
In other words, the right to copy the logos

Advertising

Trade Secrets
The formula for making Coca-Cola is a
trade secret. The formula is extremely
valuable to the company as a secret; it
would be all but useless to the
company if it were known to its
competitors (since they would all start
to copy it). It fulfils the essential
criteria for a trade secret: The
company takes special effort to keep it
a secret, and that secrecy creates
value.

The original formula for making Coca-Cola

was patented in 1893. But when the formula
changed, the company did not choose to
patent the formula again. In 1925, the
secret formula was placed in a banks vault,
where it remained for decades.
Coca-Cola has one of the best-kept secrets
for over a century now. Because of it, CocaCola is the global leader in the beverage
industry. Its trade secret for the formula of
one of the most popular soft drinks in the
United Sates is worth millions of dollars.

Why Trade Secret?

If Coca-Cola were to patent its formula, the
formula would become known to others, and
once the patent expired, anyone could use it.
It is possible to copyright a formula, but that
would also make it known to the public. And in
any case, copyright would only protect the
formula as a piece of literary expression; it
would not protect the basic ideas that make the
formula unique.
By keeping the formula a secret, Coca-Cola can
protect the formula and keep it to itself
indefinitely.

The Downside of Trade

Secret
If the Coca-Cola formula were to be
revealed, Coca-Cola could not stop
other companies from using it, the way
they could use the courts to stop other
companies from using a patented
method or its trade-marks.
It is up to Coca-Cola, then, to keep the
secret from getting out, which they do
through confidentiality agreements and
other contracts.

The Coke Trade Secret Case (2007)

Two former Coca-Cola employees were sentenced
to serve federal prison terms for conspiring to
steal and sell trade secrets to rival Pepsi.
Joya Williams, 42, of Norcross, Ga., received an
eight-year prison term, while Ibrahim Dimson, 31,
got a five-year term. Both were ordered to pay
$40,000 in restitution.
They were arrested after a federal sting operation
was launched when Pepsi tipped off Coke that it
was being offered inside information. All three
were charged with wire fraud and unlawfully
stealing and selling trade secrets from Coca-Cola
Co.

Patents
The Coca-Cola company creates
various inventions to assist with its
business. Many of these are patented,
even the ones that are not particularly
unique, since an invention does not
have to be totally unprecedented to be
patented; it just needs to have some
element of novelty.

Examples
The company has over 1410 patents
registered to its name. Some of these
patents are listed below.
United States Patent 8141733: A plastic
beverage container that can withstand
deformation by positive pressure and that
can be stably stored lying on its side is
provided. This container has a symmetrical
cross-sectional shape formed by a plurality
of circular arcs.

 United States Patent 7857156: A plastic

bottle that can easily be collapsed after
used is provided. The plastic bottle has a
body portion that is depressed internally by
applying external force, and a depressible
portion formed on a circumferential wall of
the body portion to protrude externally.
United States Patent Application
20090256000: Adrinkingstraw that can be
easily inserted through a lid or into a
beverage pouch or box but that cannot be
easily removed, for example, by a child,
once the straw is in place.

 United States Patent Application

20100021582: A bubbled
foamydrinkwhich is provided by applying
a bubbling engineering process to various
functional foods, particularly, fermented
foods supplied using various fermentation
techniques.
United States Patent 7867546: A non-fat or
low-fat food and beverage product having
low calories is provided. The product offers
a flavor, body and fat's texture.

 United States Patent Application

20090020542: A self-cooling
plasticdrinkbottle. Thedrinkbottle is
formed from joining two separate closed
internal compartments, each compartment
capable of holding a uniquedrinkingfluid.
Joining of the compartments allows for
greater consumer choice in beverage
selection as well as cooling of one
beverage through its non-contact
proximity to a frozen beverage.

The Coca-Cola "Contour" Bottle

Design Patent
This is the design patent for Coca-Cola's
classic "Contour" bottle, or "Hobble
skirt" bottle, from 1915 - one of the first
glass containers ever to be patented
based only on its unique shape. In 1916,
Coca-Cola debuted the patented bottle
which would help distinguish them from
competitors.
Though the Coke bottle's design patent
term ended after 14 years, its image
would forever live on as a representative
of Coca-Cola's renowned brand, and as
the most recognized container in the
history of the world.

Design of Bottles

Distinct shape of Bottle Trade

Dress
The Classic Hourglass Shape

Case
Studies

Case I - Coca-Cola Co. v. Pepsi-Cola

Co.
In 1942, Coke sued Pepsi for violating
its trade-mark. The courts ruled that
Cola was simply a descriptive word
identifying a type of beverage, and
that the distinguishing feature of the
Coca-Cola trade-mark was the word
Coca. And because the distinguishing
feature was not borrowed, there was no
likelihood that the average person
would get those trade-marks confused.

Case II - Coca-Cola Ltd. v. Fisher

Trading Co. Ltd.
In 1988, a Canadian court ruled that it
was a trade-mark violation to sell
bottles with the word Cola in the
same script as Coca-Cola uses as its
bottles. Even though Cola is a
common word, the combination of that
script with that word was uniquely
associated with the Coca-Cola
company, so that someone seeing
those bottles might get the idea that
they were getting Coca-Cola products.

Conclusion
In order to stay competitive, a company
needs to protect many things that are
intangible and therefore harder to protect
than tangible assets. No single regime of
law, no single type of legal protection,
can give a company all the protection it
needs for its intangible assets. But with
all four of these types of protection taken
together, and properly used, a company
like Coca-Cola can protect its intellectual
property against its competitors.

Thank You!