Labels and Trademarks One rather recent development in packaging is the labeling of the product with the company name and contents information. Inferior quality and impure products were disguised and sold to uninformed customers. Honest merchants, unhappy with this deception, began to mark their wares with their identification to alert potential buyers. Official trademarks were pioneered in 1866 by Smith Brothers for their cough drops marketed in large glass jars. In 1870, the first registered U.S. trademark was awarded to the Eagle-Arwill Chemical Paint Company.
Labels now contain a great deal of information intended to protect and instruct the public.
A Review From containers provided by nature to the use of complex materials and processes, packaging has certainly changed. Just as no single cause influenced past development, a variety of forces will be required to create the packages of the future. All educational programs conducted by Ohio State University Extension are available to clientele on a nondiscriminatory basis without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, gender, age, disability or Vietnam-era veteran status. Keith L. Smith, Associate Vice President for Ag. Adm. and Director, OSU Extension.