Cartoon stick figure riding a Ski-Doo snowmobile having a yellow colored hood — representing a blog post about the Ski-Doo Yellow color mark non-traditional trademark.

Trademark: Ski-Doo Yellow

First Used: 1959

First Registered: May 2002

Current Owner: Bombardier Recreational Products Inc. [1]

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

Primarily Associated With: snowmobiles [2]

Brief (and likely incomplete) History [3]:

The color yellow applied to the hood of a snowmobile is a registered trademark used in connection with Ski-Doo® brand snowmobiles. The Ski-Doo Model K60 was first released in 1959, and it was covered top to bottom in the color yellow. Since that time, Ski-Doo brand snowmobiles have consistently included the Ski-Doo Yellow color in some form, most typically applied to the hood of the snowmobile.

Why the color yellow? The truth may be lost in history. One story theorizes a purely functional origin: the color yellow is easy to spot and was already in use on other Bombardier machines. Another popular story posits a decision made by chance: Bombardier did not have much money at the time, so he went to a government auction and bought a large, cheap batch of paint that happened to be yellow. Yellow was a common large volume paint used at the time, including for the yellow stripes on roadways.

Interested in learning more about other yellow trademark registrations? Check out our posts on John Deere Green & Yellow, Ticonderoga Pencil, Wiffle Bat Yellow, and Axon Yellow.