Common Stuff People Have Tried To Trademark

Some things have been around forever, and no one can own them or take credit for them -- things like sunshine, or singing when you're happy, or complaining that the young generation is coddled and the world is going to Hell. These things are as ambient as air, why drag lawyers and municipal governments into them? How much money do people even make off trademarks anyway? There's just no way, like, LeBron James gets a check every time some shack on the side of an Arizona highway decides to run a “Taco Tuesday” special, right? If so, there are more lawyers in the world than we thought.

Some people, however, will try to own those things -- sometimes even successfully (because as a matter of fact, the world has already gone to Hell long ago). As long as you have enough money (or little enough shame), you can get to own pretty much anything, as we're documenting here.