Cartoon stick figure holding a bowling ball smelling of a “distinctive smell of mint” — representing a blog post about the Storm Bowling Ball scent mark trademark registration.

Trademark: Storm Bowling Ball Scent

First Used: 2000

First Registered: 2020

Current Owner: STORM PRODUCTS, INC. [1]

Trademark Type: non-traditional trademark; scent mark

Primarily Associated With: sporting equipment, namely, bowling balls [2]

Brief (and likely incomplete) History [3]:

Many different smells might come to mind when you think of a bowling alley. On the cleaner side of things, you might think of floor polish and shoe disinfectants. And on the dirtier side you might immediately recall stinky feet, cigarette smoke, and spilled beer. But do you remember ever picking up a bowling ball and giving it a good smell? If the bowling ball smelled like mint, you may have encountered a Storm bowling ball bearing the Storm Bowling Ball scent mark – one of the few scent trademark registrations!

Storm Bowling began not with a ball, but with a cleaner. In the early 1980s, Utah chemist and bowler Bill Chrisman noticed that the new urethane bowling balls (prized for their ability to hook) would absorb lane oil and lose their bite over time. To fix this, he developed a cleaning solution that led him and his wife, Barbara, to found High Score Products in 1985. By 1991, the company had transformed into Storm Products and began manufacturing its own high-performance STORM® bowling balls [4] (and even STORM® bowling shoes [5]).

Storm’s most memorable innovation arrived in 2000 with the debut of a perfect blend of chemistry, psychology, and playfulness: the world’s first scented bowling balls. The fragrances weren’t just for fun, although the scents certainly made their products stand out. Storm’s research suggested that smell could help bowlers enter a flow state by triggering positive memories, improving relaxation, and even loosening grip pressure. Some pros even began using scented bowling balls strategically. Ryan Shafer famously selected a black licorice scent simply because he knew his opponents hated it.

The Storm Bowling Ball scent mark is registered in connection with “the distinctive smell of mint as applied to bowling balls,” but today the company releases bowling balls with a MASSIVE variety of scents. Some of the colorfully-named scents include blueberry crumble, kiwi tart, apple crisp, root beer float, grapple, and red hot cinnamon, among many others.

[1] Storm Bowling, https://www.stormbowling.com/.

[2] USPTO, U.S. Trademark Registration No. 6,497,227, available at https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=90192486&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch.

[3] Bowling ball maker finds sweet smell of success, NBC NEWS, published March 14, 2005, and available at https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna7180199; These Scented Bowling Balls Help Players Reach Their Flow States, THE SLOWDOWN, published May 6, 2022, and available at https://www.slowdown.media/article/storm-products-scented-bowling-balls; Bowling Balls Can Finally Pass the Smell Test, LOS ANGELES TIMES, posted March 13, 2005, and available at https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-mar-13-sp-dogbowling13-story.html; RETRO FIND: Scented bowling balls were a game changer, KCCI DES MOINES, last updated March 31, 2025, and available at https://www.kcci.com/article/scented-bowling-balls-2003/64313145.

[4] USPTO, U.S. Trademark Registration No. 1,857,798, available at https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=74801685&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch.

[5] USPTO, U.S. Trademark Registration No. 4,403,743, available at https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=85307795&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch.