The Australian Trademark Office have accepted Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc’s trademark application for the sound of Tarzan’s yell.
Australian Trademark application 1480175 was filed in March 2012 by Edgar Rice Burroughs, which is the estate of Edgar Burroughs – author of the Tarzan books.
S27(3)(a) of the Trade Marks Act 1995 requires that a trademark application include a representation of the trademark (which is typically musical notation).
Here is the musical representation of the Tarzan Yell:
Unless you can read music, it is difficult to know what this trade mark sounds like. Under regulation 4.3(7), applications for sound trademarks must include a concise and accurate description of the trademark. In this case, the description is as follows:
The mark consists of the sound of the famous TARZAN yell. The mark is a yell consisting of a series of approximately ten sounds, alternating between the chest and falsetto registers of the voice, as follows 1 ) a semi-long sound in the chest register, 2 ) a short sound up an interval of one octave plus a fifth from the preceding sounds, 3 ) a short sound down a major third from the preceding sound, 4 ) a short sound up a major third from the preceding sound, 5 ) a long sound down one octave plus a major third from the preceding sound, 6 ) a short sound up one octave from the preceding sound, 7 ) a short sound up a major third from the preceding sound, 8 ) a short sound down a major third from the preceding sound, 9 ) a short sound up a major third from the preceding sound, 10 ) a long sound down an octave plus a fifth from the preceding sound.
As you can see, describing sounds in words is somewhat subjective, so in addition to the above, the Australian Trademark Office requires a recording of the sound (eg compact disc or MP3 file ):
Here is the recording provided in the Tarzan case: