Kikkoman Corporation, a major producer of soy sauce in Japan,
succeeded with its trademark application for its well-known sauce
dispensing bottle. The JPO registered it as Trademark No. 6031041
on March 30, 2018. The dispenser is easily recognized by its shape,
sort of an hourglass shape, and two small spout holes on either end
of its plastic head. Kikkoman launched the bottle in 1961, and it
proliferated globally during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. It received a
Good Design award in 1995 and has found its way into about one
hundred countries.
The Japan Patent Office (JPO) has accepted applications to
register three-dimensional trademarks since 1996, though it is not
always easy to do this, notes patent attorney and IP consultant
Kiyoshi Kurihara. In this case, the bottle was appropriately
distinctive compared with competitors’ bottles. An example of
another 3-D trademark registered by the JPO is the glass Coca-Cola
bottle–but even that had to overcome an initial
