Trade dress
Trade dress is the characteristics of the visual appearance of a product or its packaging (or even the design of a building) that signify the source of the product to consumers.[1] Trade dress is an aspect of trademark law, which is a form of intellectual property protection law.
Overview[edit]
Trade dress is an extension of trademark protection to "[t]he design and shape of the materials in which a product is packaged, [primarily]. 'Product configuration,' the design and shape of the product itself, may also be considered a form of trade dress."[2]
Product configuration applies particularly to situations where the product can be seen within the packaging (e.g. a toy car sold in packaging that operates as a shadow box for commercial display within—the collective look it creates is trade dress), or where the packaging is part of the product (e.g. the bottle of a soft drink, along with its visible contents, are trade dress, though the bottle is actually part of the product that retains its value to the consumer for as long as its contents last).
Like all intellectual property law other than patent law, trade dress and other trademark elements are subject to the bar on functional features (e.g. a handle cannot be protected, though it may contain trade dress features that can prevent exact replicas of a particular trade dress handle). It is a question of which elements of the packaging are intrinsic to the basic function of the packaging.
In the United States, the Lanham Act protects trade dress if it serves the same source-identifying function as a trademark. It is possible to register trade dress as a trademark, but for practical reasons most trade dress and product configurations are protected without registration under .[2]
Similar concepts in other countries[edit]
China[edit]
Although Chinese law does not recognize a concept of trade dress, the Anti-Unfair Competition Law (反不正当竞争法) does protect the packaging, decoration, or appearance of a "well-known commodity"; this provision accomplishes something similar to trade dress protections.[25]