Patents on the soles of your shoes...: March 2026

Saturday, March 14, 2026

Oh, patents! The Coca-Cola bottle (3)

A third Coca-Cola bottle design patent, USD105529, titled Design for a bottle, was issued on August 3, 1937, to Eugene Kelly, a citizen of the United States, residing in Toronto, Canada, who then assigned the patent to The Coca-Cola Company, in Wilmington, Delaware. This was the last design patent filed for Coca-Cola glass bottles, before the bottle was trademarked, in 1960, and therefore protected from use by others for as long as the trademark was renewed and fees paid.

The 1937 Coca-Cola bottle design patent was issued upon expiration of the 1923 Christmas Day patent, in other words, exactly 14 years later. Experts have noted that the patent drawing for the 1937 bottle appears exaggerated, almost caricatured, presumably so that the design could appear different enough to be patentable (Lockhart & Porter, 2010). Thus, the 1937 design patent depicted the distinctive bottle contours as almost elliptical, to clearly differentiate the Coca-Cola bottle from any other bottle on the market. The patent design also depicted a space of interrupted contours, around the bottle, reserved for the Coca-Cola embossed logo, which is not shown, again to protect the secrecy of the design.

Below, the extracted 1937 Coca-Cola bottle design patent, Figure 1, depicting a side view of the Coca-Cola bottle design. The patent drawing appears next to a Georgia Green marketed embodiment of the design, showing the embossed CocaCola logo and patent number D105529 in the reserved space. The location where the bottle was produced is embossed on the bottom. As also shown below in this case, the bottle was produced in Roanoke, Va.

References

The Coca-Cola Company: The History of the Coca-Cola Contour Bottle. The Coca-Cola Company website.

https://www.coca-colacompany.com/about-us/history/the-history-of-the-coca-cola-contour-bottle

Lockhart, B. and B. Porter (Sept- Oct., 2010). The dating game: Tracking the Hobble-Skirt Coca-Cola Bottle. Society for Historical Archeology.

https://secure-sha.org/bottle/pdffiles/coca-cola.pdf

Thursday, March 12, 2026

Oh, patents! The Coca-Cola bottle (2)

A second Coca-Cola bottle design patent, USD63657, titled Design for a bottle, was awarded to Chapman J. Root, CEO of the Root Glass Company, on December 25, 1923. Because the patent was granted on Christmas Day, this slightly thinner Coca-Cola bottle design became known for a while as the “Christmas bottle”.

As for the first Coca-Cola bottle design patent, depiction of the embossed Coca-Cola logo was omitted to protect the secrecy of the design. In the second patent, however, the space for embossing cuts the emblematic contouring. The bottle contours that could be “felt”, and that served to distinguish Coco-Cola bottles from all others.

Below, the extracted patent Figure 1 showing a perspective view of the thinner Coca-Cola bottle design. The patent figure appears next to an image of a Georgia Green marketed embodiment of the design, showing the embossed logo and the patent date. This Christmas bottle was produced in Jackson, OH, per the embossed information, on the bottom of the bottle, also appearing below.

Reference
The Coca-Cola Company: The History of the Coca-Cola Contour Bottle. The Coca-Cola Company website.
https://www.coca-colacompany.com/about-us/history/the-history-of-the-coca-cola-contour-bottle

Tuesday, March 10, 2026

Oh, patents! The Coca-Cola bottle (1)

Established in 1886, in Atlanta, Georgia, The Coca-Cola Company is 140 years old. Although the Coca-Cola beverage formula was never patented, to prevent imitation once patent protection had lapsed, the company holds hundreds of patents. No less important than formula were the Coca-Cola bottles. Particularly when the sale of Coca-Cola soda from soda fountains also became franchised to bottling operations across the United States, as early as 1900.

Clearly, Coca-Cola bottles had to be produced, which could be differentiated from all the competing soda bottles on the market. Especially when labels would just peel off if the bottles were sold out of large barrels of ice water. Or when competitors used similar soda names, such as Toka-Cola or Koka-Nola, which could be confused with the Coca-Cola logo embossed on plain glass bottles.

Thus, according to The Coca-Cola Company’s lore, the company launched a contest, challenging several of the Coca-Cola bottling operations in the United States to come up with packaging “so distinctive that you would recognize it by feel in the dark or lying broken on the ground.” (The Coca-Cola Company)

The winner of the contest was a bottling operation in the Midwest, in Terre Haute, Indiana, called the Root Glass Company. Thus, the first Coca-Cola bottle design patent, USD48160, titled Design for a bottle or similar article, was awarded in 1915 to Alexander Samuelson, who worked at the Root Glass Company. Inspired by cacao pods (unrelated to "coca" leaves) , Samuelson gave ribbing to the bottle, and a shape similar to cacao pods. In turn, the contoured shape of the bottle gave it a unique feel.

The bottle was produced with green glass, which became known as Georgia Green. The bottles were then produced at six different bottling operations in the US, with the city of the bottling operation embossed at the base of the bottle.

Below, the extracted patent Figure 1, showing a perspective view of the contoured bottle design. The image of a historic 1915, Georgia Green, prototype Coca-Cola bottle also appears below. The bottle is embossed with the Coca-Cola logo, and Atlanta, GA on the bottom, indicating it was produced there.