Canada’s Heritage in Trademarks: 6 Canadian Trademarks Registered Before 1880

1.     Gooderham & Worts was a distiller in Toronto which eventually merged with Hiram Walker in Windsor, Ontario.  This trademark was registered in 1871, just two years after the company was founded.  This trademark will be familiar to those who have been to Toronto because their closed distillery forms the heart of the Distillery District, a very popular entertainment and shopping hub in the city.

2.     CROSS & BLACKWELL was registered as a trademark in Canada in 1874 in association with a variety of canned goods, soups and sauces.  Although this brand is now owned by The J.M. Smucker Company in North America, Edmund Cross and Thomas Blackwell took over the company in the early 1800s.

3.     Gooderham & Worts was a distiller in Toronto which eventually merged with Hiram Walker in Windsor, Ontario.  This trademark was registered in 1871, just two years after the company was founded.  This trademark will be familiar to those who have been to Toronto because their closed distillery forms the heart of the Distillery District, a very popular entertainment and shopping hub in the city.

4.     The Bass triangle is a very famous trademark.  It has been in use for around two hundred years and is famously the first trademark registered in the United Kingdom, with registration No. UK00000000001.  Interestingly, the registration No. in Canada is TMDA622, where it was far from the first trademark to be registered, even though it was registered nearly a full year before the UK trademark.

5.     It is not surprising that several of the oldest trademarks that are still on the Register are registered in association with alcohol.  In many industries, old companies and old looking names and logos make products and services seem dated and out of touch with modern consumers.  Alcohol is one of the few consumer product categories where “heritage” brands have a large share of the market.  This registration for cognac was registered in 1875, and almost 150 years later is still being sold.

6.     The NABOB brand is primarily associated with coffee today, but the first Canadian trademark registration for NABOB, registered in 1875, was in association with sauces and pickles.  Today this trademark is owned by Kraft, which also owns the NABOB coffee trademarks, but the original registrant of this historical registration was Batty & Co. in London, whereas the Nabob Coffee Co. was founded in 1896 in Vancouver.