Ping-Pong
Trademark: Ping-Pong
First Used: August 1900
First Registered: June 1931
Current Owner: INDIAN INDUSTRIES, INC. (dba Escalade Sports) [1]
Trademark Type: traditional trademark; word mark
Primarily Associated With: game played with rackets and balls [2]
Generic Phrase: table tennis, as in PING-PONG® Brand table tennis
Also A Trademark For: bats and rackets of the tennis type for games [3]; table and parts thereof especially constructed for a game [4]; and hollow composition and like balls for indoor bat or racket games, table games, tennis types games, and the like [5]
Brief (and likely incomplete) History: [6]
The sport of table tennis first originated in England in the late 1800’s as a parlor game played by the upper class. The game was originally played on a dinner table with books serving as the net and with simple equipment including paddles made from cork and parchment and a lightweight celluloid ball. Table tennis quickly caught on with the public and was marketed under a variety of wild brand names including Gossima, Whiff Waff, Parlour Tennis, Indoor Tennis, Pom-Pom, Pim-Pam, Netto, Clip-Clap, and of course Ping-Pong®.
The Ping-Pong brand name was registered as a trademark in England in 1901 by J. Jaques & Son Ltd., who marketed the game under this name due to the sound made by the ball. The rights to the Ping-Pong brand name were sold to Parker Brother who popularized the game across America, and registered it as a US trademark in 1931. The International Table Tennis Federation was formed in the 1920s and "table tennis" became the official name of the sport, with the Ping-Pong brand continuing as the most popular brand name of the sport.
Did you know that Indian Industries (dba Escalade Sports) is also the current owner of another recognizable table game trademark? First created and used in 1972, Indian Industries is also the owner of the AIR-HOCKEY® trademark for “game tables for use with gliding surface projectiles, surface projectiles for same and playing accessories” [7].
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[1] Shop Ping-Pong Tables and More, ESCALADESPORTS, available at https://www.escaladesports.com/collections/ping-pong.
[2] U.S. Trademark Registration No. 520,270, available at https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=71564016&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch.
[3] U.S. Trademark Registration No. 283,766, available at https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=71295231&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch.
[4] U.S. Trademark Registration No. 294,408, available at https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=71295229&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch.
[5] U.S. Trademark Registration No. 283,767, available at https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=71295230&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch.
[6] History of Table Tennis, International Table Tennis Federation, available at https://www.ittf.com/history/documents/historyoftabletennis/; History of Ping-Pong, Medium, posted August 28, 2021, and available at https://medium.com/@TaylorN/history-of-ping-pong-ec84ae9a341b.
[7] U.S. Trademark Registration No. 1,037,909, available at https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=71295230&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch.