Inferno of Odors: A Literary Smellscape

I’ve been re-reading Vladimir Nabokov’s Speak, Memory, which he calls An Autobiography Revisited. It’s a memoir of his boyhood in Tsarist Russia and his later émigré ramblings through Europe until his departure for America in 1940. But it is also about the realm of memory, the patterns of life, and how one places oneself in the web of experience.

Nabokov’s prose is precise yet inventive and evocative—enhanced by his natural tendency toward synesthesia. He is also a keen olfactory observer; I quoted him on the scent of butterflies in WTNK.

What caught my attention this time was his description of the Grunewald park in Berlin where he and his wife would stroll with their young son. This would have been sometime between 1934 and 1937. It is remarkable because it is an outdoors smellscape that involves BO:

“And nearer to the lake, in summer, especially on Sundays, the place was infested with human bodies in various stages of nudity and solarization. Only the squirrels and certain caterpillars kept their coats on. Gray-footed goodwives sat on greasy gray sand in their slips; repulsive, seal-voiced males, in muddy swimming trunks, gamboled around; remarkably comely but poorly groomed girls, destined to bear a few years later—early in 1946, to be exact—a sudden crop of infants with Turkic or Mongol blood in their innocent veins, were chased and slapped on the rear (whereupon they would cry out, “Ow-wow!”); and the exhalations coming from these unfortunate frolickers, and their shed clothes (neatly spread out here and there on the ground) mingled with the stench of stagnant water to form an inferno of odors that, somehow, I have never found duplicated anywhere else.”

Do You Have Stress Breath?

What’s more remarkable? That a pilot study published in the Journal of Breath Research claims to find odorous markers of stress, or that there is a scientific periodical called the Journal of Breath Research?

At any rate, the putative markers are indole and 2-methylpentadecane. You can download a copy here.

Exit question: How long before someone trains service dogs that alert to bad breath?

The Perfume Lover: Denyse Beaulieu in Greenwich Village

The U.S. edition of Denyse Beaulieu’s The Perfume Lover will be released tomorrow. (I blurbed it!) You can get it on Amazon, or better yet buy one in person this Friday and have Denyse sign it for you. The book signing is at the Aedes de Venustas store in Greenwich Village and runs from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. (I’ll be there!) You’ll also get to smell Séville à l’aube, the perfume at the center of the story.

Also recommended: this CBC interview in which Denyse covers everything from new EU fragrance regs to the history of perfume.

Can You Trademark the Peppermint Scent of a Drug?

A recently decided case has some fascinating implications for anyone attempting to register scent or flavor as a trademark.

The case is In re Pohl-Boskamp GmbH & Co. KG, and it was issued on February 25, 2013 by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The ruling itself can be found here.

The product in question is Pohl-Boskamp’s Nitrolingual Pumpspray, a device that delivers a peppermint infused spritz of nitroglycerin beneath the user’s tongue. (Sublingual nitroglycerin is a vasodilator that eases the angina associated with coronary artery disease.) The company tried to trademark the peppermint scent/flavor of its product and was denied by the trademark examiner. They appealed and the new ruling—a final denial—is the result.

It is well established that smells can be trademarked in the United States (the EU is another story). So what was the problem with granting a mark to Pohl-Boskamp? Turns out it was two-fold.

First, trademarks can’t be functional. Back in 1924, the Supreme Court ruled that a chocolate flavor added to a pharmaceutical couldn’t be trademarked because it had the functional effect of masking the bitter taste of the medicine. A trademark must be an inessential, incidental feature of the product that serves only to identify the goods in question.

OK, but Pohl-Boskamp never claimed that the peppermint in its product was functional. Yes, said the trademark examiner, but I found a patent that claims peppermint and other menthol-containing substances are vasodilators that enhance the effect of nitroglycerin. (USPTO rules allow third-party patents to be cited in administrative proceedings . . . who knew?) Therefore, said the examiner, the peppermint is functional and can’t be trademarked.

As if that weren’t good enough, the TTAB supplied a second reason. It found that there are other, similarly scented, vasodilators currently on the market. Thus the peppermint is not sufficiently distinctive to qualify as a trademark.

It seems to me that this decision by the TTAB adheres closely to previous interpretations of trademark law and doesn’t do much to further restrict the use of scent/flavor in trademark.

P.S. I found this summary of the case by the intellectual property law firm Mandour & Associates to be quite helpful.

P.P.S. The Mandour & Associates article was reprinted word for word, without attribution, by China Trademark & Patent Law Office, “a professional intellectual property service firm” headquartered in China. What else do you need to know about communist China’s respect for intellectual property?

Old Spice Marketing: Wolfdog or Just a Dog?

An embarrassing bit of sponsor-slobbering from HLN—you know, CNN’s dumber, less tasteful, corporate sibling.

Whoever’s in charge of marketing at Old Spice headquarters gets it, and it’s working. Oh, wait. A dog is in charge. Giggle your way to the body wash aisle, why don’t you?

HLN’s Colette Bennett is talking about spoofy spokescanine Mr. Wolfdog. She predicts he’ll achieve internet fame within a week. Really? See what you think.

Personally, I find the spot too long, too slow, and just not funny. Compare it to 30 sec. of the epic Old Spice Guy. Hell, compare it to E*Trade’s talking baby.