Shield Mark B.V. vs. Joost Kist is a decision by the 6th Senate of the European Court of Justice, case C-283/01, which dealt with the question whether sound signs may be registered as trademarks, and what requirements those sound signs and their trademark entry have to fulfill to be consistent with Article 2 of the First Council Directive of 21 December 1988 to approximate the laws of the Member States relating to trade marks (89/104/EEC). Sound trademarks Definition Sound signs are melodies or tone colors. They are identified by hearing without support through speech. As such they can be utilized in acoustic brand marketing, which creates the need to register them as trademarks to protect a company's intellectual property and ensure their use as exclusive identifier for the company, just like a company logo does. Sound trademarks are protected trademarks centered on the reproduction of sounds and tones. Combinations of sound and word or graphic elements are additional design options. Typical sound marks include tunes, jingles, melodies, as well as general sounds or noise. In the European Union, a sound sign or tone color can be trade marked as sound trademark if it has significant differentiation and can be graphically represented. These requirements are satisfied if the sound trademark is clear, precise, self-contained, easily accessible, intelligible, durable and objective. Therefore sound signs or tone colors can only be registered in the member states of the European Union if they are precisely graphically represented, e.g. by musical notation or a sonogram, or any other distinct method, e.g. a sound recording. Historical Development Music or tunes have been utilized for centuries to highlight specific events. A church bell drawing attention to an ecclesiastical service is a prime example. The utilization of music for specific product advertisements comparable to today's sound trademarks has been boosted with the introduction of the radio and later the television. First radio advertisements underlined by music were already aired in the 1920s. Significance for Marketing Sound trademarks are underestimated as marketing instrument. Their value of brand recognition makes them an effective enhancement to conventional marketing strategies. Sound trademarks create emotional associations to a specific product when the target customers hear a particular melody or tune. Shield Mark Verdict of the European Court of Justice The following paragraph introduces the verdict in the legal case Shield Mark BV versus Joost Kist, representative of the company Memex, before the European