Del’s Lemonade
Trademark: Del’s Lemonade Horn sound mark
First Used: 1959
First Registered: 1984
Current Owner: DEL’S LEMONADE & REFRESHMENTS, INC. [1]
Trademark Type: non-traditional trademark; sound mark; trade dress; configuration mark
Primarily Associated With: food carry-out services from a mobile truck [2]
Brief (and likely incomplete) History [3]:
For generations of Rhode Islanders, the Del’s frozen lemonade truck has been a familiar sign of summer. But the story behind Del’s frozen lemonade begins far from Rhode Island. According to the company’s history, the DeLucia family began making an early version of the frozen lemonade in Naples, Italy, in the mid-1800s. During the winter, snow was stored in nearby caves and insulated with straw. When summer arrived, the snow was mixed with lemon juice and sugar to make a refreshing frozen drink sold at the local market.
Franco DeLucia brought the recipe to the United States around the turn of the 20th century. In the 1940s, Franco’s son Angelo designed a new machine and production method that could make the frozen lemonade consistently. The resulting product became known as Del’s Frozen Lemonade and was first sold from a small stand in Cranston, Rhode Island. Angelo soon also developed mobile machines that allowed Del’s frozen lemonade to be served throughout the state, helping turn a family recipe into one of Rhode Island’s most recognizable summer traditions.
Today, visitors will quickly notice two signature features when encountering a Del’s truck. First, they will hear it: the Del’s Lemonade Horn sound mark [4] is a distinctive musical two-tone horn sequence playing the notes F and A, sounded back-to-back at least twice (unlike traditional ice cream trucks that play looping nursery rhymes or music box melodies).
And second, they will see it: the Del’s Lemonade Truck configuration mark [5] protects the green and yellow coloring with the display of a lemon on the truck (the STOP AT THE SIGN OF THE LEMON® [6] slogan is well earned!).
Next time you are in Rhode Island, keep your eyes and ears open for a Del’s truck!
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[1] Del’s Lemonade, https://dels.com/.
[2] USPTO, U.S. Trademark Registration No. 1,280,214, available at https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=73391897&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch.
[3] The Del’s Story, DEL’S LEMONADE, available at https://dels.com/pages/about-us; Del’s Lemonade | Up Close, NEW ENGLAND, posted May 15, 2015, and available at https://newengland.com/yankee/magazine/dels-lemonade-up-close/; Del’s Stop at the Sign of the Lemon, RHODE TRIP, available at https://rhodetour.org/items/show/66; The Italian Origins Of Rhode Island's Famous Frozen Lemonade, TASTING TABLE, posted April 8, 2025, and available at https://www.tastingtable.com/1823976/rhode-island-frozen-lemonade-origin/.
[4] Id. at 2.
[5] USPTO, U.S. Trademark Registration No. 1,297,145, available at https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=73441519&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch.
[6] USPTO, U.S. Trademark Registration No. 1,476,321, available at https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=73658693&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch.