Upper Deck Holograms
Trademark: Upper Deck Holograms
First Used: 1993
First Registered: 2002
Current Owner: THE UPPER DECK COMPANY, INC. [1]
Trademark Type: non-traditional trademark; hologram mark
Primarily Associated With: autographed memorabilia and trading cards [2]
Brief (and likely incomplete) History [3]:
ChatGPT said:
UPPER DECK® [4] burst onto the trading card scene in 1989 with a bold mission: to elevate card collecting into a premium experience. Founded in Yorba Linda, California, the company was the brainchild of card shop owner Richard McWilliam and a group of investors who wanted to fight counterfeiting and poor print quality that plagued the industry. Their first baseball set (headlined by a young Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card) used high-gloss photography and crisp white cardstock that set a new standard for quality and authenticity. No matter the sport today, college football, football, college basketball, hockey, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, baseball, you name it, there is a trading card or autographed memorabilia for you (some even signed used a SHARPIE® brand marker!).
In 1995, Upper Deck began adding hologram stickers to its trading cards to distinguish its products and to discourage counterfeiters. At first, Upper Deck utilized A LOT of different holograms for its products: a hockey puck-shaped hologram design for its hockey products, a soccer ball panel-shaped hologram for soccer products, a racing flag-shaped hologram design for its racing products, a baseball field-shaped hologram design for its baseball products, a football-shaped hologram design for its football products, a circular basketball-shaped hologram on its basketball products, and a diamond-shaped hologram design for use on miscellaneous products.
After some cost-cutting moves, Upper Deck primarily uses just three hologram designs today, all of which are registered hologram trademarks. The Upper Deck Oval hologram mark [5] is used on authenticated memorabilia (first use 1993), the Upper Deck Logo-Shaped hologram mark [6] is used on autographed card products (first use 1997), and the Upper Deck Diamond hologram mark [7] is used on all regular card products (first use 1995).
Copyright © 2025 by Illustrated IP, LLC. All rights reserved.
[1] Upper Deck, https://upperdeck.com/.
[2] USPTO, U.S. Trademark Registration No. 2,619,227, available at https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=75495208&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch.
[3] History, UPPER DECK, available at https://upperdeck.com/about-upper-deck/history/; Upper Deck Trading Cards - A Brief History, SPORTS CARD EDGE, available at https://sportscardsedge.com/blogs/news/upper-deck-trading-cards-a-brief-history; 25 years with Upper Deck: A look at the brand and the card that changed it all, LOOKOUT LANDING, posted February 28, 2014, and available at https://www.lookoutlanding.com/2014/2/28/5447154/25-years-with-upper-deck-a-look-at-the-brand-and-the-card-that; Upper Deck Response to Non-Final Office Action of November 21, 2001, in U.S. Serial No. 76/275,803, USPTO, available at https://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn76275803&docId=IPC20020604080122&linkId=21#docIndex=20&page=1;
[4] USPTO, U.S. Trademark Registration No. 1,986,925, available at https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=73805171&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch.
[5] Id. at 2.
[6] USPTO, U.S. Trademark Registration No. 2,710,652, https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=76275803&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch.
[7] USPTO, U.S. Trademark Registration No. 2,796,625, https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=76275804&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch.