Yes, a jewelry design can potentially receive trademark protection as product-design trade dress, but obtaining that protection is substantially more difficult than registering a jewelry brand name or logo.
A jewelry company cannot register a ring shape, bracelet configuration, pendant silhouette, watch design, stone arrangement, or other product feature as a trademark merely because the design is original, visually distinctive, popular, or commercially successful.
For product-design trade dress, two central requirements must be addressed.
First, the design must be nonfunctional. A product feature that is essential to the use or purpose of the jewelry, or affects its cost or quality, cannot be monopolized through trademark law. Functionality is an absolute bar to registration.
Second, the configuration must have acquired distinctiveness, also called secondary meaning. Product design is never inherently distinctive. Consumers must have learned to recognize the claimed configuration itself as identifying one commercial source.
For newly launched jewelry, those requirements often make copyright or design patent protection more practical in the early stages, while trade dress may become increasingly relevant after a signature design has been used and promoted consistently for years.
Key Takeaways
Jewelry product design is never inherently distinctive. Under Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Samara Brothers, Inc., a product configuration cannot reach the Principal Register merely because the design is unusual. The applicant must establish acquired distinctiveness. The current May 2026 TMEP expressly applies that rule to product-design trade dress.
Functionality cannot be cured by consumer recognition. Even overwhelming evidence that customers associate a feature with one company cannot create trademark rights in a feature that is legally functional.
Five years of use may not be enough. The USPTO states that trade dress applicants face a heavy burden, and a simple declaration of five years’ substantially exclusive use is generally insufficient for product design without stronger supporting evidence.
Advertising should teach customers to recognize the design itself. “Look-for” advertising can help establish that buyers perceive a particular configuration as indicating source rather than merely as an attractive product.
Copyright and design patents protect different interests. Copyright can protect sufficiently creative jewelry artwork, while design patents protect new, original, ornamental designs for articles of manufacture. Neither requires the same proof of consumer source recognition demanded by product-design trade dress.
What Is Jewelry Trade Dress?
Trade dress refers to source-identifying features of the appearance of a product or its packaging.
For jewelry, product-design trade dress can potentially involve the three-dimensional configuration of the jewelry itself.
Examples might include a distinctive pendant silhouette, an unusual bracelet-link configuration, a recurring arrangement of decorative settings, a particular ring profile, or a combination of design elements consistently used across a product family.
Trademark law does not protect the design simply because competitors’ products look different.
The claimed configuration must function as a trademark.
That means consumers encounter the design and understand, in substance, that jewelry having that configuration comes from one particular source.
Can the Shape of a Ring or Pendant Be Trademarked?
Potentially, but the product-design rules apply.
Suppose a jewelry company has sold a ring with the same unusual three-dimensional profile for many years. The design receives extensive press coverage, appears consistently in advertising, and customers recognize the configuration even when the company’s written name is not visible.
If the claimed elements are nonfunctional and the company can prove that consumers perceive the configuration as identifying source, the design may potentially support trade dress protection.
A newly introduced ring configuration presents a much greater challenge.
Under current TMEP §1202.02(b)(i), product design is never inherently distinctive. Principal Register registration requires acquired distinctiveness under Section 2(f).
This is one of the most important differences between jewelry names and jewelry shapes.
A sufficiently distinctive invented jewelry brand name can potentially be protectable immediately.
The product configuration itself cannot.
Why Is Product Design Never Inherently Distinctive?
The Supreme Court addressed the issue in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Samara Brothers, Inc.
The Court recognized that consumers ordinarily understand product designs as features intended to make products more useful or attractive rather than immediately assuming that the shape identifies who made the product.
The current TMEP therefore states categorically that product-design trade dress is never inherently distinctive and cannot be registered on the Principal Register without a showing of secondary meaning.
For jewelry, the principle is particularly intuitive.
Consumers routinely buy jewelry specifically because they like its physical appearance.
A customer may recognize a pendant as unusual, beautiful, or fashionable without having learned that the pendant’s shape itself identifies one jewelry company.
Trademark law requires the second kind of recognition.
What Is Acquired Distinctiveness for a Jewelry Design?
Acquired distinctiveness exists when the primary significance of the claimed configuration in consumers’ minds has become source identification.
Consumers do not necessarily need to know the company’s formal corporate name.
They need to understand that jewelry displaying the claimed combination of design features comes from the same commercial source.
That distinction is subtle but critical.
Knowing that a design is famous is not necessarily the same as recognizing the design as a trademark.
A company might sell millions of units because customers love the appearance of its bracelet. Those sales do not automatically prove that customers treat the bracelet configuration as identifying the manufacturer.
Current TMEP guidance consequently imposes a heavy evidentiary burden on product-design applicants.
What Evidence Can Prove Secondary Meaning in a Jewelry Design?
The evidence should demonstrate recognition of the specific configuration being claimed, not merely popularity of the jewelry company as a whole.
Relevant evidence can include length and exclusivity of use, advertising directed specifically to the configuration, significant sales, the number of customers, media recognition, intentional copying, consumer declarations, and survey evidence.
The current TMEP stresses that product-design evidence must relate to promotion and recognition of the particular configuration claimed in the application. General advertising for the product or strong recognition of the company’s written trademark may not be sufficient.
This creates an important distinction for luxury jewelry businesses.
A company may have an extremely famous word mark.
That does not automatically establish that consumers recognize a particular bezel, bracelet, clasp arrangement, or pendant configuration as a separate trademark.
The product design must develop its own source significance.
Is Five Years of Use Enough to Trademark a Jewelry Design?
Not necessarily.
Section 2(f) permits the USPTO in appropriate circumstances to accept evidence of substantially exclusive and continuous use for the preceding five years as prima facie evidence of acquired distinctiveness.
Product design is treated more cautiously.
The current TMEP states that a mere declaration of five years’ use is generally insufficient for trade dress and notes decisions where substantially longer periods of use still failed to establish acquired distinctiveness.
The more common or basic the design features are within the industry, the greater the evidentiary problem.
A highly unusual configuration consistently used for years may present a stronger case.
A design consisting primarily of familiar hearts, circles, ordinary prongs, standard chains, or customary jewelry arrangements will normally require much more persuasive evidence that consumers recognize the particular combination as a trademark.
Does Strong Sales Volume Prove That a Jewelry Design Is a Trademark?
Not by itself.
High sales can mean consumers like the product.
They do not necessarily mean consumers perceive its physical configuration as identifying source.
The current TMEP warns that generalized sales and advertising figures can be insufficient when advertising displays the claimed configuration primarily alongside a conventional word trademark. In that situation, consumers may be relying on the name rather than the shape to identify the source.
A jewelry brand should therefore distinguish commercial success from trademark recognition.
Both can be valuable evidence, but they are not interchangeable.
What Is “Look-For” Advertising?
“Look-for” advertising deliberately teaches consumers to recognize a particular design feature as a signature indication of source.
Rather than merely showing a bracelet in an advertisement, the company directs attention to a recurring feature.
For example, advertising might consistently tell customers to recognize a distinctive nonfunctional link configuration as a signature characteristic of the company’s jewelry.
The TTAB has explained that simply displaying a product or praising an attractive feature is not enough. Effective look-for advertising points consumers toward the specific feature as something that identifies source.
For a jewelry company building long-term trade dress rights, that distinction can become important.
Does Every Advertisement Have to Be “Look-For” Advertising?
No, but product-design-focused advertising can materially strengthen the evidence.
A jewelry company does not need to turn every advertisement into a legal notice.
The larger strategy is to teach customers over time that certain nonfunctional design characteristics are signatures of the brand.
That might occur through advertising, product descriptions, retailer materials, editorial coverage, collection histories, or other branding that repeatedly highlights the same configuration.
Consistency matters because the ultimate question is consumer perception.
What Did the 2025 Audemars Piguet Watch Case Decide?
The TTAB’s precedential 2025 decision in In re Audemars Piguet Holding SA is especially important for jewelry and watch companies considering product-design trademark protection.
Audemars Piguet sought Principal Register protection for two three-dimensional watch configurations.
The dispute involved whether various features of the proposed watch designs were functional and whether all of the features claimed in solid lines had acquired distinctiveness. The TTAB affirmed the USPTO’s refusals after concluding that the applications’ drawings claimed features that needed to be excluded from the trademark claims.
The decision is now cited in the current May 2026 TMEP and provides a highly relevant modern example of how rigorously the USPTO analyzes luxury watch configurations.
Why Is the Audemars Piguet Decision Important for Jewelry Brands?
The case demonstrates that longstanding commercial success and substantial advertising do not automatically make every visible part of a luxury product registrable trade dress.
The TTAB examined the specific elements shown in the trademark drawings.
It concluded that functional elements could not remain claimed in solid lines and emphasized that product-design evidence must prove source significance for the particular combination of elements actually claimed.
The Board also found the absence of true look-for advertising significant when evaluating whether consumers had been taught to rely on the specific product configuration as a source identifier.
For jewelry companies, the lesson is significant:
Do not define the proposed trade dress more broadly than the evidence can support.
What Does Functionality Mean in Jewelry Trade Dress?
A product feature is generally functional when it is essential to the use or purpose of the article or affects the article’s cost or quality.
The current TMEP derives that standard from TrafFix Devices, Inc. v. Marketing Displays, Inc. and related Supreme Court authority.
For jewelry, potentially functional features could include structures necessary to secure stones, clasp mechanisms required to fasten a bracelet or necklace, connection systems, adjustable features, components improving comfort, or configurations that materially reduce manufacturing cost.
Whether any particular feature is legally functional depends on the evidence.
The important point is that acquired distinctiveness cannot rescue a functional feature.
Can a Functional Jewelry Feature Ever Become a Trademark Through Fame?
No.
Functionality is an absolute bar to trademark registration.
Section 2(e)(5) of the Trademark Act prohibits registration of matter that, as a whole, is functional. Section 2(f) does not permit acquired distinctiveness to overcome that prohibition.
The current TMEP likewise states that functionality bars both Principal and Supplemental Register protection regardless of evidence showing acquired source recognition.
A clasp cannot become perpetually exclusive under trademark law merely because customers know who originally popularized it if the claimed feature remains legally functional.
This prevents trademark law, which can potentially continue indefinitely, from replacing the limited monopoly provided by patent law for useful inventions.
What if a Jewelry Design Contains Both Functional and Decorative Features?
That is common.
A ring setting may contain structural features needed to hold the gemstone together with separate ornamental details.
A bracelet may require a functional clasp but surround that mechanism with a distinctive decorative configuration.
A watch may contain functional parts while also incorporating nonfunctional source-identifying features.
The trademark claim should focus on the protectable nonfunctional elements.
Current TMEP §1202.02(c)(i) requires functional or otherwise unclaimed portions of a product configuration to be depicted using broken or dotted lines rather than solid lines.
Solid lines identify the product features being claimed as the trademark.
That distinction can become critical to the scope and validity of the registration.
What Is Aesthetic Functionality?
Some product features may create functionality concerns even when they are not mechanically necessary.
The doctrine commonly called aesthetic functionality addresses situations where giving one company exclusive trademark rights in a feature would create a significant non-reputation-related competitive disadvantage for others.
Jewelry can present difficult questions in this area because visual appearance is itself central to consumer demand.
A company should therefore be cautious about attempting to monopolize basic hearts, stars, crosses, ordinary gemstone arrangements, standard floral imagery, common geometric patterns, or other features competitors may legitimately need to satisfy customer preferences.
This does not mean attractive features are automatically functional.
The legal analysis turns on the precise feature and its competitive significance. The current TMEP treats competitive need as an important consideration within functionality analysis, while recognizing that traditional utilitarian functionality can independently defeat registration.
Can a Combination of Common Jewelry Elements Become Trade Dress?
Potentially.
Trademark protection does not always require every component to be individually unique.
A distinctive combination of otherwise familiar nonfunctional elements can potentially acquire secondary meaning if consumers recognize that combination as identifying one source.
The claim should nevertheless be carefully defined.
A company should not attempt to claim all circular pendants or every bracelet using floral ornamentation.
The more broadly the proposed trade dress overlaps with basic industry designs, the more difficult acquired distinctiveness and functionality can become.
The registration should provide meaningful notice of what particular combination the company claims.
Is a Recurring Signature Design Stronger Than a One-Off Jewelry Piece?
As a practical trademark matter, often yes.
Trade dress depends on consumers learning a source association.
Repeated exposure to a stable configuration provides more opportunity for that association to develop.
Suppose a jewelry house uses one signature nonfunctional pendant silhouette across several metals, gemstone combinations, and sizes for many years.
Consumers may eventually learn that the recurring configuration identifies that company.
A one-of-a-kind custom necklace does not provide the same repeated marketplace exposure.
It may have substantial value under copyright or design patent law, but it may be difficult to prove that its configuration serves as an ongoing trademark.
Can a Jewelry Company File an Intent-to-Use Application for Product Design?
Yes, but intent-to-use status does not eliminate the product-design distinctiveness requirement.
Current TMEP §1202.02 states that in a Section 1(b) application, the examining attorney must still issue a nondistinctiveness refusal for a product-design mark even before an allegation of use has been filed because product design can never be inherently distinctive.
This is a major practical difference from filing an intent-to-use application for an inherently distinctive jewelry brand name.
A company can begin the application process early, but filing early does not magically create secondary meaning.
The configuration must ultimately satisfy the applicable product-design requirements.
Can a Jewelry Design Go on the Supplemental Register?
A nonfunctional product design that has not yet acquired sufficient distinctiveness for the Principal Register may potentially qualify for the Supplemental Register once the legal requirements for that register are satisfied and the design is capable of distinguishing the applicant’s goods.
The current TMEP specifically states that a nonfunctional product design may be registered on the Supplemental Register, while Principal Register protection requires acquired distinctiveness.
A functional configuration cannot be registered on either register.
The Supplemental Register can therefore provide an interim consideration for some configurations, but it does not remove the functionality problem.
What Does a Jewelry Trade Dress Drawing Look Like?
Three-dimensional trade dress applications have specialized drawing requirements.
Current USPTO rules generally require a three-dimensional mark to be depicted in a single rendition, and the mark description must state that the mark is three-dimensional.
For product configurations, solid lines identify the features being claimed.
Broken or dotted lines identify portions that are not part of the trademark, including functional features, placement matter, or other unclaimed product elements.
The application must also contain an accurate description explaining the claimed configuration and the significance of the broken lines.
A vague claim to the “overall look” of a ring can create serious notice and examination problems.
Why Should the Trade Dress Claim Be Defined Before Filing?
Because product configuration protection can become extremely specific.
A jewelry company may consider its product recognizable as a whole, but federal registration requires identifying which features are actually claimed as the trademark.
If a drawing claims too much, functional or nondistinctive components can create refusals.
If it claims too little, the registration may fail to protect the signature combination the company actually cares about.
The 2025 Audemars Piguet decision is a strong reminder. The TTAB affirmed refusals where the drawings claimed elements in solid lines that the USPTO concluded needed to be excluded through broken-line treatment.
Does the Specimen Have to Match the Product Configuration Drawing?
Yes.
Current TMEP guidance requires the specimen to demonstrate the same three-dimensional features claimed in the application so that the drawing is a substantially exact representation of the mark actually used.
A jewelry company should therefore coordinate the filing with the version of the product actually being commercialized.
If the claimed pendant shape changes materially between filing and launch, the specimen may no longer support the original trademark drawing.
Consistency matters both for developing secondary meaning and for prosecution of the application itself.
Can a Logo or Symbol Applied to Jewelry Be Protected Without Claiming the Whole Product Shape?
Yes, and that can be much simpler than attempting to claim the complete product configuration.
A jewelry company might place a distinctive monogram, emblem, or signature symbol consistently on its pieces.
That feature may function as a conventional trademark if customers recognize it as identifying source.
Placement still matters.
A symbol forming the dominant decorative subject of a pendant may be understood primarily as ornamentation, while a small recurring manufacturer’s emblem can create a different consumer impression.
Packaging, boxes, tags, and ecommerce pages may also provide strong evidence of use for conventional brand names and logos.
Those materials do not by themselves establish that the physical shape of the jewelry has acquired trade dress significance.
Can Unregistered Jewelry Trade Dress Still Be Protected?
Potentially.
Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act can support certain claims involving unregistered trade dress.
The statute expressly provides that, in a civil action concerning trade dress that is not registered on the Principal Register, the party asserting protection bears the burden of proving that the claimed matter is not functional.
The claimant would also need to satisfy the other requirements applicable to its trade dress claim, including distinctiveness and likely consumer confusion.
Federal registration can provide significant procedural and evidentiary benefits, but a qualifying configuration does not necessarily cease to have trademark significance merely because it is unregistered.
Does Copying a Jewelry Design Automatically Infringe Trade Dress?
No.
Copying and trademark infringement are not identical concepts.
Trade dress protection requires protectable source-identifying matter and an infringement analysis involving likely consumer confusion.
A competitor may copy an attractive feature that has never become a trademark.
The competitor may also use common or functional design elements it remains legally entitled to use.
Intentional copying can potentially be relevant evidence, including in acquired-distinctiveness analysis, but copying alone does not transform every jewelry design dispute into a trademark case.
That distinction is one reason copyright and design patent law should also be considered.
Can Copyright Protect a Jewelry Design?
Yes, when the design contains sufficient original artistic authorship.
The U.S. Copyright Office specifically recognizes jewelry designs as visual artworks and generally treats qualifying jewelry as sculptural works.
Copyright does not require the jewelry shape to function as a brand.
Instead, the analysis concerns original creative expression.
The Copyright Office explains that jewelry may be created through carving, casting, molding, shaping, original arrangements of elements, or added pictorial decoration. It will not register designs consisting merely of common or standardized configurations, familiar symbols, obvious arrangements of commonplace elements, or mechanical and utilitarian aspects.
This can make copyright particularly valuable for new ornamental designs that have not yet developed secondary meaning.
Are Simple Jewelry Designs Copyrightable?
Not always.
The Copyright Office provides jewelry-specific examples of designs that may contain too little authorship, including ordinary solitaire rings, simple diamond studs, plain bangles, simple hoop earrings, and other commonplace settings or gemstone arrangements.
A combination of familiar elements may still qualify when the overall selection, coordination, or arrangement contains sufficient original expression.
The analysis therefore does not ask whether the jewelry is commercially attractive or expensive.
It asks whether the design contains protectable creative authorship.
Does Paying a Jewelry Designer Give the Company Copyright Ownership?
Not automatically.
Copyright ownership should be addressed separately in the company’s agreements with designers, artists, photographers, and other creators.
Section 204 of the Copyright Act generally provides that a transfer of copyright ownership must be documented in a writing signed by the owner of the rights conveyed or the owner’s authorized agent.
A company should therefore not assume that paying an invoice or receiving the CAD files transfers every copyright interest.
Trademark, copyright, and patent ownership can require different documentation.
Can a Design Patent Protect Jewelry?
Potentially.
USPTO guidance states that a design patent can protect a new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture.
The protected subject matter can involve the configuration or shape of the article, surface ornamentation, or a combination of configuration and ornamentation.
For jewelry, that can potentially include the ornamental appearance of a ring, bracelet, pendant, earring, watch, or another article.
Unlike trade dress, a design patent does not depend on showing that customers recognize the design as a trademark.
The legal requirements are different.
How Long Does a U.S. Design Patent Last?
For design patent applications filed on or after May 13, 2015, the term is generally 15 years from the date of grant.
Trademark protection operates differently.
A qualifying trade dress trademark can potentially continue as long as the trademark remains valid, distinctive, nonfunctional, in use, and properly maintained.
That difference is one reason patent and trademark protection can complement one another during different stages of a product’s commercial life.
Can the Same Jewelry Design Have a Design Patent and Trade Dress Protection?
Potentially.
The systems protect different legal interests.
A design patent may protect a new, original ornamental appearance for a limited statutory period.
During that period, continued use and promotion of a distinctive nonfunctional configuration might help customers begin associating the design with one source.
If the configuration eventually acquires secondary meaning and satisfies trademark functionality rules, trade dress may become another form of protection.
Obtaining a design patent does not automatically prove acquired distinctiveness or guarantee later trademark registration.
The trademark applicant still must establish the separate Lanham Act requirements.
What About Utility Patents and Jewelry Trade Dress?
Utility patents can create significant functionality issues.
The current TMEP explains that a utility patent disclosing utilitarian advantages of the features claimed as trade dress can be powerful evidence of functionality. In some circumstances, an applicant faces an especially heavy burden to establish that features disclosed as useful in a utility patent are nevertheless nonfunctional for trademark purposes.
For jewelry businesses developing innovative clasps, adjustable systems, stone settings, wearable technology, or mechanical watch structures, patent and trademark strategies should therefore be considered together.
A feature described to the Patent Office as providing practical advantages can later complicate an attempt to claim perpetual trademark rights in the same functional feature.
How Should a Jewelry Company Build Trade Dress Recognition?
The process should begin before the trademark application.
The company should identify which nonfunctional design features it wants customers to recognize consistently.
Those features should remain stable across commercial use.
Advertising can draw attention to them as signature characteristics.
Retailer descriptions, catalogs, packaging, ecommerce pages, and media outreach can reinforce the association.
The company should preserve dated evidence of use, advertising, sales, press coverage, retailer recognition, and consumer responses.
If survey evidence later becomes necessary, the survey must actually address recognition of the configuration being claimed rather than a different legal question. The Audemars Piguet decision illustrates why survey methodology and the precise features studied matter.
What Should Jewelry Companies Preserve as Evidence?
A long-term trade dress file can include dated product photographs, catalogs, advertising, lookbooks, retailer pages, ecommerce listings, invoices, sales data, press coverage, social media materials, and examples of competitors referencing or copying the design.
Advertising evidence should show how the specific configuration was promoted.
If customers, retailers, or journalists refer to the design independently as a signature of the company, those materials can also become relevant.
The evidence should focus on the configuration rather than merely demonstrating that the company’s written jewelry brand is famous.
That distinction is central to the current TMEP’s acquired-distinctiveness analysis.
Example: Protecting a Signature Bracelet Design
Suppose a jewelry company introduces a bracelet using a distinctive recurring combination of decorative link shapes.
The clasp mechanism itself is conventional and performs the practical function of securing the bracelet.
At launch, the company files for its brand name and evaluates copyright and design patent protection for the ornamental design.
Over the following years, the company preserves the same distinctive link configuration across multiple bracelet variations.
Its advertising repeatedly directs customers to recognize the signature arrangement. Retailers identify the configuration as a recognizable feature of the brand. Sales and press coverage grow.
Years later, the company considers product-design trade dress.
The trademark application should define the nonfunctional source-identifying combination precisely. Functional clasp components and other unclaimed portions would ordinarily be shown in broken lines, while the actual claimed configuration appears in solid lines.
The acquired-distinctiveness evidence should then demonstrate that consumers recognize that specific combination as identifying one jewelry source.
Frequently Asked Questions About Trademark Protection for Jewelry Designs
Can you trademark a jewelry design?
Potentially. A jewelry product configuration can qualify as trade dress when it is nonfunctional and has acquired distinctiveness as a source identifier. Product design is never inherently distinctive.
Can you trademark the shape of a ring?
Potentially, if the claimed configuration is nonfunctional and consumers recognize it as identifying one commercial source.
Can a new jewelry design immediately receive trade dress protection?
Principal Register protection for product design requires acquired distinctiveness. A new design ordinarily lacks the marketplace history necessary to make that showing immediately.
Is five years of use enough?
Not necessarily. Current TMEP guidance states that a simple five-year-use claim is generally insufficient for trade dress, particularly when the design features are common or basic.
What is look-for advertising?
It is advertising that intentionally directs consumers to a particular product feature as something identifying source rather than merely presenting that feature as attractive.
Can a functional clasp be trademarked?
A legally functional product feature cannot receive trademark protection, even if customers associate it with one company.
Can only part of a jewelry design be claimed?
Yes. Current trade dress drawing rules allow the claimed product features to appear in solid lines while other elements, including functional or unclaimed portions, are shown in broken or dotted lines.
What happened in the Audemars Piguet trademark case?
In a precedential January 2025 decision, the TTAB affirmed refusals involving two three-dimensional watch-configuration applications after finding that the drawings claimed features that needed to be excluded based on functionality or lack of proven trademark significance.
Can jewelry be copyrighted?
Yes, sufficiently creative jewelry designs may qualify as visual or sculptural works. Commonplace arrangements, familiar symbols, and mechanical features may not.
Can jewelry receive a design patent?
Potentially. A design patent can protect a new, original, ornamental design for an article of manufacture.
How long does a design patent last?
For qualifying U.S. design patents based on applications filed on or after May 13, 2015, the term is generally 15 years from grant.
Can a jewelry design have both copyright and trademark protection?
Potentially. Copyright protects qualifying original expression, while trademark trade dress protects nonfunctional design features that consumers recognize as identifying commercial source.
Can unregistered jewelry trade dress be enforced?
Potentially. Section 43(a) can apply to unregistered trade dress, but the party asserting the claim bears the burden of proving nonfunctionality and must satisfy the other requirements of the claim.
Final Thoughts
Can jewelry designs be protected by trademark law? Yes, but product-design trade dress is one of the more demanding forms of trademark protection.
The configuration cannot simply be beautiful, original, commercially successful, or recognizable.
It must function as a trademark.
Because product design is never inherently distinctive, a jewelry company seeking Principal Register protection must establish acquired distinctiveness showing that consumers recognize the specific configuration as identifying one commercial source.
Functionality is equally important. Features that are essential to the use or purpose of the jewelry or affect its cost or quality cannot become trademarks, no matter how much consumer recognition they acquire.
The TTAB’s 2025 precedential Audemars Piguet decision provides an especially useful warning for jewelry and watch companies. Even decades of commercial use and extensive advertising do not necessarily establish registrability for every feature shown in a three-dimensional product drawing. The company must distinguish functional matter from the specific nonfunctional features for which it can prove source recognition.
For newly created jewelry, a layered intellectual-property strategy may be stronger.
The company name, collection names, and logos can be protected through conventional trademark applications. Qualifying creative jewelry designs may be considered for copyright protection. New, original ornamental configurations may warrant design patent review. A recurring signature configuration may later develop into protectable trade dress after consumers have learned to recognize it as identifying source.
The strongest long-term strategy is therefore not to ask which single form of intellectual property protects the jewelry.
It is to identify which right protects each separate asset and when that protection becomes available.
Primary Authorities and Sources
Trademark Manual of Examining Procedure, May 2026. May 2026 is the current TMEP edition and incorporates precedential developments relevant to trade dress examination.
TMEP §1202.02. The current USPTO trade dress guidance requires separate consideration of functionality and distinctiveness and states that functional trade dress cannot be registered regardless of acquired distinctiveness.
TMEP §1202.02(b)(i). Product-design trade dress is never inherently distinctive and requires acquired distinctiveness for Principal Register registration.
TMEP §1202.02(c). Three-dimensional product-configuration drawings must accurately distinguish claimed matter from functional or otherwise unclaimed elements through solid and broken-line treatment and must include an appropriate description.
In re Audemars Piguet Holding SA, Serial Nos. 90045780 and 90045814 (TTAB Jan. 2, 2025). This precedential decision addressed functionality, acquired distinctiveness, and drawing requirements for three-dimensional watch configurations and affirmed the refusals to register.
15 U.S.C. §1052(e)(5) and §1052(f). The Trademark Act prohibits registration of functional matter and permits registration of otherwise eligible marks that have acquired distinctiveness. Functionality cannot be overcome through Section 2(f).
15 U.S.C. §1125(a)(3). A party asserting unregistered trade dress in a civil action bears the burden of proving that the matter sought to be protected is not functional.
U.S. Copyright Office, Jewelry Designs. Copyright Office guidance explains that sufficiently creative jewelry designs may receive copyright protection as visual or sculptural works, while commonplace arrangements, familiar symbols, and utilitarian components generally do not.
USPTO Design Patent Guidance. A design patent protects a new, original, ornamental design for an article of manufacture, including product configuration, surface ornamentation, or a combination of the two.
About the Author
Abraham Cohn is Managing Partner of Cohn Legal, PLLC and heads the firm’s Intellectual Property and Transactional Group. His practice includes intellectual property protection, licensing, and counseling involving brands and designs, together with strategic commercial transactions involving manufacturing, supply, distribution, technology, and related business arrangements.