In a recent change of policy, CIPO has announced that it will now accept applications for sound trademarks. The applications must contain a drawing that graphically represents the sound, a description of the sound and an electronic recording of the sound. The electronic recording must be in MP3 or WAVE format and recorded on a CD or DVD which is submitted with the application.

The sound mark can be refused if it is considered to be functional and/or clearly descriptive or deceptively misdescriptive. It should be interesting to see how CIPO interprets that. Intel, wasting no time, has already filed for their familiar sound trademark on May 25, 2012. The musical notation is set out and the description is: “The sound trade-mark consists of a 5 note audio sequence, 0 Flat, 0, Flat, G Flat, 0 Flat and A Flat and is graphically represented below as shown below.”

I’m sure Intel will get their registration, since it is distinctive and original, at least as far as I know. But what do you do with a short excerpt from a classical piece? Can ODE TO JOY now be trademarked? This could lead to some really interesting situations!