Hasbro / Parker Brothers was in the news last week with the announcement of a new Monopoly playing piece. Monopoly is protected by a plethora of US trademark registrations. Of course, a trademark registration does not grant the owner a true monopoly. But it does grant a powerful swath of rights to the owner.
The owners of Monopoly have done an amazing job of registering it at the USPTO. Of course, millions of sales and decades of use make registered some of the game trade dress easier.
Here are some of the Monopoly® trademarks (click mark or design for USPTO records):
- MONOPOLY (registered since 1935)
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Hi there, I came across your site while investigating a potential project for my masters degree. I am an artist. First, thank you very much for those specific links to the Trademark office, that was brilliant to see how Trademarks are laid out and what they cover. I do have two questions for you.
1. A disclaimer means that they can not copy the general layout of the board correct? https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=73812323&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch
2. In that same Trademark listing, the colours red pink blue violet etc are very generic. Considering the plethora of colour combinations and printing variations through Pantone and coding, it hardly seems plausible that the generic colour combinations of all reds, all blues etc are included in the Trademark. Is that a correct understanding?
Thank you.
Julia