Cartoon stick figure holding a peanut butter cup in one hand and a bright orange candy wrapper in the other — representing a blog post about the Reese’s Orange color mark trademark registration.

Trademark: Reese’s Orange

First Used: 1969

Registered: 1999

Current Owner: HERSHEY CHOCOLATE & CONFECTIONERY LLC [1]

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

Primarily Associated With: candy and confectionery chips for baking with peanut butter as the characterizing flavor or as one of various characterizing flavors [2]

Brief (and likely incomplete) History [3]:

The Reese’s Orange color mark is a significant piece of trademark history – it is one of the oldest still-registered single color marks in the United States!

Reese’s® wrappers and packaging didn’t always feature the bold orange color we know today. When H.B. Reese first started selling his peanut butter cups in the 1920s, the wrappers featured foil or plain packaging having lettering and colors that emphasized function more than flair. As the brand increased in popularity over the ensuing decades, yellow and brown became the go-to palette, a natural nod to peanut butter and chocolate. The color orange was sometimes used for lettering or to emphasize features in the ad.

In 1969, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups became the best-selling product of The Hershey Company, a significant achievement that solidified its position as the top candy brand in the United States. This milestone occurred six years after H.B. Reese's sons merged the H. B. Reese Candy Company with Hershey's in 1963, giving Hershey's vast distribution power and leading to Reese's top-selling status.

That same year Reese’s introduced its now-iconic wrapper and packaging: a bright yellow wordmark outlined in chocolate brown, set against that unmistakable Reese’s Orange color backdrop. While seasonal twists and special editions have appeared over the years, the Reese’s Orange color mark together with the yellow and brown font has remained untouchable, cementing Reese’s packaging as one of the most consistent, and legally protected, looks in the candy aisle.