The attempt began not in a courtroom, but in a conference room above a packing facility in Delano, California. In 1997, the Golden Sun Produce Company, an aggressive up-and-coming distributor of bananas, pineapples, and processed fruit snacks, launched a marketing initiative that would become one of the strangest trademark battles of the decade. Their idea was bold, absurd, and nearly successful: they wanted to legally control a specific shade of yellow associated with their fruit products. If it had worked, competitors selling naturally yellow fruit would have been forced to avoid the very color the produce was born with.
The stunt started innocently enough. Golden Sun’s marketing team noticed that supermarkets tended to arrange their displays in a way that made brands indistinguishable from each other. Bananas, regardless of whose bins they came from, all looked the same. Pineapples blended together. Even their new line of dried fruit pouches vanished on shelves crowded with identically colored packaging. The company’s creative director proposed an audacious solution: adopt a proprietary, hyper-saturated shade of yellow and stake a legal claim to it. If a company could trademark the Tiffany blue box or Owens-Corning’s pink insulation, why couldn’t Golden Sun secure “Golden Sun Yellow” for itself?
The internal pitch was half-serious, half-marketing theater. But the company’s leadership, emboldened by rapid growth, decided to pursue it. They commissioned a Pantone lab to create a signature color, brighter than ripe banana skin, warmer than pineapple flesh, and with a subtle orange undertone. Once finalized, Golden Sun submitted a trademark application, arguing that the shade had acquired distinctiveness through ad campaigns and packaging tests. Their legal team framed it as a crucial step toward brand clarity in an overcrowded market.
Then came the shock: the application was not immediately dismissed. Instead, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office requested additional documentation, something they typically reserve for borderline but not inherently impossible claims. For a brief moment, it seemed as if a fruit company might succeed in claiming exclusive rights to one of nature’s most common colors.
Competitors reacted with disbelief. Trade associations warned that granting the trademark could “cripple the produce industry,” forcing growers to redesign labels, packaging, and even signage in grocery stores. Several companies filed oppositions arguing that bananas, pineapples, lemons, and corn all naturally use “yellow” as part of their visual identity, and restricting that color, even a specific shade, would hand Golden Sun an unfair competitive advantage. Legal scholars, meanwhile, speculated that approving the trademark could set precedent for companies to control colors inherent to natural products, creating a slippery slope where agricultural branding would be dictated by chromatic ownership.
The case reached its most bizarre moment when Golden Sun staged a marketing demonstration at a trade expo, unveiling their new packaging: bold yellow boxes, bags, and stickers with the slogan “The Only True Yellow.” They distributed mock legal notices warning competitors not to “infringe on the Golden Sun chromatic identifier.” The stunt generated substantial press, some amused, some outraged, but it also drew the attention of regulators who had not fully grasped the potential consequences of approving the application.
Behind the scenes, USPTO examiners reviewed scientific literature on color perception and marketing law precedents. Colors can be trademarked only when they acquire secondary meaning tied specifically to a brand, never when they serve an essential functional purpose. And for fruit, yellow wasn’t just branding, it was the product itself. Blocking others from using a natural color on fruit packaging would limit communication about ripeness, quality, and flavor, violating a core principle of trademark law: that functional features cannot be monopolized.
The turning point came when experts testified that consumers rely on yellow cues when selecting fruit, and that banning similar shades from competitors would mislead or confuse shoppers. The USPTO concluded that Golden Sun’s yellow was, in legal terms, “functional by association,” inseparable from the natural goods it represented.
In early 1999, the application was formally denied. Golden Sun issued a lighthearted press release calling the attempt “a branding experiment ahead of its time,” but internal memos later revealed genuine disappointment. The CEO had believed the trademark could create a lasting competitive moat, and for a short while, the industry feared he might succeed.
Golden Sun eventually abandoned the effort, though their distinctive yellow packaging remained part of their brand for years. The episode is now taught in marketing and intellectual property courses as a near-miss, an audacious attempt that forced regulators to clarify just how far color ownership can go. Today, the case serves as a reminder of the strange space where creativity, commerce, and legal boundaries collide. And for a brief window in the late 1990s, one fruit company nearly convinced the government to let it own a slice of the visible spectrum.
Note: This article is part of our fictional-article series. It’s a creative mystery inspired by the kinds of strange histories and unexplained events we usually cover, but this one is not based on a real incident. Headcount Media publishes both documented stories and imaginative explorations—and we label each clearly so readers know exactly what they’re diving into.
(One of many stories shared by Headcount Coffee — where mystery, history, and late-night reading meet.)
