General Mills Can’t Register Yellow Cheerios Box Trademark

General Mills’ bid to register the color yellow as a trademark for its popular Cheerios breakfast cereal was rejected by a Patent and Trademark Office panel.

The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board agreed with a trademark examiner that General Mills had failed to show that consumers recognize a yellow box as specifically indicating cereal from General Mills or Cheerios (In re General Mills IP Holdings II, LLC, TTAB, 86757390, 8/22/17).

The board said Aug. 22 that common use of yellow packaging by the company’s biggest competitors—including Post Holdings Inc., the Kellogg Co., and PepsiCo Inc.'s Quaker Oats Co.—supported ...