Copyright © Françoise Herrmann
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.
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