Bluebells and Blue Bell

In a very exciting event for me, my Texas bluebells (Eustoma exaltatum) have bloomed! These striking flowers were raised from seed over the past year. It was challenging, and the number of adult flowering plants I have today is painfully fewer than the number of seedlings initially germinated. 

Please do not visit my yard to see this flower without an invitation, I won't be happy

Fortunately, I planted several Texas bluebells in the Fondren Rain Garden, so anyone can enjoy their beauty. 

These two spent blooms are in the rain garden; there will be more soon!

Why the excitement? Aside from the difficulty of raising them, the Texas bluebell was once an iconic flower of this region. However, it was so beautiful, that people picked enough of the flowers to nearly wipe them out. Today, it is not often seen in the wild, and you are more likely to find a cultivar or close relation for sale. Fortunately a few people recognized the need to collect and preserve some specimens, and the original wild-type plant is making its way into native gardens; maybe one day it will again grow wild in abundance. 

The Texas bluebell is also notable because it is the namesake of our regional ice cream brand, Blue Bell!  It was once so well-known it could be considered a symbol of the region. Now there are probably more people familiar with the ice cream brand than the plant.

Which brings us to the real topic of the post: Blue Bell IP. After all, it's a good excuse to look at some delicious trademarks and patents.

Despite being an ice cream (and also butter) manufacturer for nearly a century, Blue Bell Creameries owns only two patents. Both are designs for "ice cream stations", which appears to be not a whole ice cream scoop store, but rather just a stand.

The front page of D293,747

It isn't clear if this is meant to be indoors or out, or if it should be for selling just Blue Bell ice cream. Distinguishing characteristics of the two are also not immediately apparent. (Design patents are not very detailed.) Have you ever seen one of these ice cream stations? Check out US D293,748 and US D293,747 at the links. 

It's definitely for serving Blue Bell ice cream, but they make nothing else clear

On the other hand, Blue Bell owns several registered marks, many no longer active. Let's look at a few of the more iconic and recognizable entries.

The milkmaid and cow silhouette is carved into every Texan's brain, I think. There's more than one iteration registered, but here's a link to the TSDR entry for no. 1144445, issued in 1980.  

An encircled version, registered 1985, no. 1321048

The plain wordmark for Blue Bell, no. 972517, was registered in 1973. I think that's around when they were big enough to actually need a federal mark, rather than just Texas state or common law. See all of its information at the TSDR here.

The specific font was registered in 2023, no. 7106559

Blue Bell also takes some of its flavors very seriously. For example, Moo-llennium Crunch. I recall this flavor's introduction. Its registration was a little late in 2002, possibly because they didn't plan ahead and submitted the application in November 2000. Visit the specimen images and more from the TSDR. 

This is rough, I'm really craving ice cream now. Good thing I planned to visit the grocery store after work! For any Fondren staff readers, keep an eye out for a relevant announcement this week. You might be in luck, if you're a Blue Bell fan...