Cartoon stick figure balancing on one leg atop a Coca-Cola bottle while holding a Coke bottle in each hand — representing the Coca-Cola Bottle shape mark.

Trademark: Coca-Cola Bottle Shape

First Used: July 1916

First Registered: April 1960

Current Owner: The Coca-Cola Company [1]

Trademark Type: non-traditional trademark; trade dress; shape mark

Primarily Associated With: carbonated soft drink

Other Associated Trademarks: Coca-Cola Bottle configuration marks and Coca-Cola Glass configuration marks

Brief (and likely incomplete) History [2]:

The Coca-Cola Company is the owner of several timeless and historically significant trademark registrations, including the Coca-Cola Logo trademark (one of the first US design mark registrations) and the Coca-Bottle Bottle Shape trademark (the earliest, still active US shape mark registration).

In the early 1900s, Coca-Cola sought to create a new bottle that would stand out amidst its competitors. In 1915, the company launched a competition for glass manufacturers to design a distinctive bottle. The winning design came from the Root Glass Company in Terre Haute, Indiana, creating a unique bottle shape inspired by the cocoa pod's shape and vertical ridges. The final bottle design included unique curves, shapes, and ridges that were not only visually distinctive but also functional, making the bottle easy to hold and identify. By 1916, the Coca-Cola bottle was in production, setting a new standard for beverage packaging.

The Coca-Cola Bottle Shape quickly gained popularity for its iconic design and as remained relatively unchanged over the years, a testament to its enduring appeal. The iconic shape has earned a number of nicknames over the years. The most popular nickname is “Contour Bottle,” but one lesser known nickname is “Hobble Skirt Bottle.” WTF does that mean? A hobble skirt was a narrow-waisted skirt popular in the early 1900s. The Coca-Cola Bottle design is slimmer in the center, giving it the appearance of a corseted waist which led to the Hobble Skirt Bottle nickname (long outdated today), Regardless of what you call it, there is no denying that the Coca-Cola Bottle Shape is synonymous with the Coca-Cola® brand, easily recognizable even when the bottle is depicted without a logo.