Patented chocolate by Mars!

I was perusing the U.S. Patent Office database the other day and came across a design patent by Mars for a candy bar. Patents for the chocolate companies are very rare so I really wanted to have a look at it.

Here is FIG. 1 from the patent. I thought it was kinda funny and had no idea what the “D” swirl was for. Never thought it would stand for Dove. In my case it stood for Duh. They also have a second patent for the same bar without the “D”.

Then I saw the bars in the store! Yes, the Dove Smooth Milk Chocolate and Dove Rich Dark Chocolate bars. Maybe they were there all along but they say “New!” on them.

On the back it says “patent pending” which could now say “patented” with the patent number. Its a scare tactic more than anything and design patents can be gotten around by fairly small changes. By the way, the underside design of the bar is not claimed in either patent, so have at it. :) (All the people at Mars are “snickering” at that one: “Just try and make forms on the underside, which is the exposed surface in the mold!”)

I’m not sure what the angle was for patenting the design except that maybe they wanted a unique bar with smaller sections so that people would feel like they were eating small pieces and not a big giant bar. Who knows.

Originally, their application had both versions (D and non-D) in it but the examiner told them they were two distinct designs and they had to elect one or the other. In such a case, you must elect one or the other, but you can do so “with traverse” (argument). If your argument fails (most likely) you can withdraw the claims for the other design without prejudice to file them as a separate application. They chose the “D” version first and withdrew the design for the non-D. Then they filed a second application for the non-D version.

By the way, if you know the application number or patent number for a patent or application, if it is fairly recent, but more than 18 months since the filing date, you can view ALL the files relating to it, online, at the USPTO website under PAIRS (unless the inventor or asignee has chosen not to publish). Every letter and such sent back and forth for an application. Its actually very interesting reading.

How does a patented chocolate bar taste? Well, the milk chocolate one was very smooth. I did like it. A little bit of a funny after-taste. The ingredients listed “natural and artificial flavors”, and since they don’t say vanilla, I suspect they add vanillin. Its hard to taste it in milk chocolate though.

The dark was pretty harmless. If you like milk chocolate you might like this bar as it was very very milk. Not much dark chocolate richness to it. I suspect they are hunting for people who normally buy the Dove milk chocolate, who would be scared away by real dark flavors. Very smooth, but kind of a funny milky taste. Like it was milk chocolate with alot less sugar. It had a bit of a greasy feel in my mouth afterwards. Not sure what that was about.

That’s it for this week. Have a chocolate day. :)

This entry was posted on Friday, October 13th, 2006 at 6:23 am and is filed under Chocolate Friday. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.