Hasbro Has Officially Trademarked the Smell of Your Childhood: Play-Doh

Authored by gizmodo.com and submitted by Arb0k
image for Hasbro Has Officially Trademarked the Smell of Your Childhood: Play-Doh

I have some bad news if you’ve created a perfume that has a sweet, slightly musky, vanilla-like fragrance, with slight overtones of cherry, and the natural smell of a salted, wheat-based dough. That’s exactly how Hasbro describes the scent of Play-Doh, a smell that many of us associate with out childhoods, and a smell that the toy maker has officially now trademarked.

Image: United States Patent and Trademark Office

Although various forms of modelling clay predate Play-Doh by many years, the toy, which was created in 1956 and patented in 1965, has become the “Kleenex” or “Velcro” of nondescript blobs of malleable material. Kids don’t ask to play with clay, they ask to play with Play-Doh, which is probably one of the reasons Hasbro decided to trademark and protect one of the toy’s recognizable features.

The company has assured us there are currently no plans for litigation now that the trademark is official. “Registering the iconic Play-Doh scent as a trademark gives Hasbro a whole host of fun and creative opportunities in the future, but in the present moment, plans are not currently set,” a Hasbro representative told Gizmodo. Does this mean that Play-Doh-scented fragrances on the horizon?

purplemonkeyspank on September 27th, 2018 at 06:08 UTC »

It tastes like salty dough too.

dw_jb on September 27th, 2018 at 05:21 UTC »

That smell is unique. But I’m surprised smells can be trademarked.

WHUPTEEDOOO on September 27th, 2018 at 04:42 UTC »

Dammit! Now I can’t make that designer fragrance I had planned that had notes of sweet, slightly musky, vanilla-like, slight over tone of cherry, and natural salt, and wheat-based dough