Inflamed over counterfeits, Zippo registers its simple shape

BRADFORD -- The classic shape of a Zippo lighter is so simple anyone might stumble upon it -- a small, rectangular box, a metal shell with smooth beveled edges and a gently curved top.

If you're thinking about making one that looks like it, though, you'd best reconsider.

Zippo Manufacturing Co., which has been making the popular lighters since the 1930s, has registered its rectangle, its classic brass-and-chrome box, with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, promising to run out of the market imitators who figure they can make something reminiscent of it and cash in on Zippo's recognition.

The reasoning is simpler than the shape itself: Zippo doesn't want consumers or any of the four million Zippo collectors it says are in the United States (plus many more overseas) paying for something that isn't and doesn't perform like the genuine article.

"If you see that shape, you say, 'Zippo,"' said Jeff Duke, in-house legal counsel for the company founded by George D. Blaisdell in 1932. "People started copying that brand, people started knocking off that brand because people would buy it."

And why not• It looks classy yet somehow not stodgy or rich; it feels good in the hand, 2 solid ounces of lighter; and it comes with a guarantee to fix it for free at the headquarters in Bradford, about 130 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, for as long as the lighter survives.

Zippo produces about 12 million lighters a year -- about 375 million since 1932 -- and over the years, they have been decorated with drawings and symbols, commemorating football teams, moon landings, race car drivers and cartoon characters. They have chronicled much of the 20th century and become sought-after collectibles for people who remember the old Zippos their fathers and grandfathers carried.

They are purchased on eBay and are the focus of clubs which swap them at meets. Dealer Ira Pilossof, of Bergen County, N.J., says he sold an original 1933 lighter that had never been worked on for some $20,000 a few years ago.

"It's much more than just registering a square metal box," Duke said.

Which is why the company has been pursuing trademark protections already granted overseas in many countries, including Cuba, Finland, Israel, Vietnam. Last year, it won protection in the United States and is now sending word out to manufacturers and retailers: If you're making or selling something that looks like the Zippo, knock it off.

Otherwise, you might end up in court. Knockoffs must be off the shelves by July.

According to Duke, many of the knockoffs are made in China and discovered when people send them to Zippo to be repaired. Zippo sends them back to the owners, unfixed.

Some collectors also are learning how to tell the real thing from a fake -- including those which try to mislead with words like "Zipo" or "Zipp" stamped on the bottom.

Duke said one competitor -- Ronson -- objected to the shape registration but later withdrew its objection, agreeing to change the design of one of its lighters reminiscent of the classic Zippo configuration. Ronson officials in New Jersey did not return calls to The Associated Press for comment.

Still, it may seem odd that a company can register something as seemingly indistinctive as a rectangular metal box.

It is not, say trademark attorneys and experts. Take the design of Dairy Queen's Dilly Bar -- that's been registered since 1958. The shape of Chrysler's retro-looking PT Cruiser• That's registered, too. So's the configuration of that '70s icon, the lava lamp.

As Jessie Marshall, an attorney with the Patent and Trademark Office, explained, the applicant has to prove the design is either inherently distinctive or that the public is so attuned to a shape that, as soon as someone sees it, its source is recognized.

Think Coca-Cola bottle; it's the archetype for this sort of thing.

Another part of the equation, said Ann Dunn Wessberg, a trademark lawyer for Faegre & Benson in Minneapolis, is the shape can have nothing to do with the actual operation or production of the device or item, the feeling being that might stifle competition.

If you want to make fiberglass insulation, for instance, you can't trademark the dirty yellow color it has when it is produced, Wessberg said. But if you want to color it pink and slap a cartoon panther on your ads, as Owens-Corning has done, you can get it protected. It's art for art's sake, and, as Oscar Wilde might say, perfectly useless.

But not without value: Zippo says knockoffs consume as much as 30 percent of their business.

There are no plans for the lighter police; salesmen and regional representatives will look out for imitations, and, if they see them, ask merchants or manufacturers to get rid of them. If that doesn't happen, Zippo could go to court. They could even seize imitations, like officials say they have in Europe.

The company says, however, it has abandoned, for the moment at least, getting trademark protection for one other item -- the click the lighter makes when it opens.