Hi-Vis Isn't a Brand: What a Neon Green Tripod Teaches Industrial Businesses About Standing Out

A tripod just lost a trademark fight.

On 25 August 2026, the US Trademark Trial and Appeal Board refused to let SitePro, a maker of construction and surveying tripods, register the neon green on its tripod legs as a trademark. It wasn't a question of whether people recognised the colour. The board refused it because the colour does a job.

What happened

SitePro wanted to own one specific green, Pantone 2297C, on the legs of its tripods. It had used that green since 2019. The board ruled the colour "functional". In trademark terms, that means it gives the product a practical advantage. One company can't own a practical advantage, so functional features can't be registered.

What sank it? Partly SitePro's own marketing. Its website said the tripod "out-performs others and gets seen on the jobsite with UV-resistant high-visibility." An Amazon listing promised "high visibility flo-yellow composite legs and struts." The examiner then found rival tripods sold in neon green for the same reason, along with safety sources explaining why fluorescent yellow-green is the most common colour on construction sites. The board concluded that high-visibility green on construction gear "enhances safety by increasing visibility and awareness."

That's true. It's also exactly why the colour can never belong to one company.

The trap most industrial brands are in

The lesson reaches well beyond tripods. If the thing you think makes you recognisable is something your whole category needs, it isn't a brand asset. It's a uniform.

Think hi-vis green on site kit, safety yellow on machinery, steel blue for engineering firms, a gear or a globe in the logo, and "quality, reliability, service" on the homepage. Each of these does a job. Because they do a job, everyone uses them, and none of them point back to you.

The problem isn't limited to industry. A 2026 audit by marketer Louis Grenier scored 100 B2B tech brands on eight distinctive assets. Only one reached "ownable". 78% landed in the generic or invisible bands. His conclusion: "the assets brands pour the most into are the ones that work the least because everyone pours into them."

Two brands that got it right

Owens Corning. Fibreglass insulation is naturally a dull yellowish tan, and it spends its life hidden inside walls. In 1956 the company began dyeing it pink to set it apart from rivals. Pink doesn't make insulation work better or safer. It does nothing at all, and that was the point. In 1985 a US federal appeals court let Owens Corning register pink as a trademark for its insulation. It was the first time a US company had won a trademark on a single colour. The court's reasoning was that pink served no useful purpose for insulation and buyers had learned it meant Owens Corning.

John Deere. Deere did the same thing with a pair of colours. In 2017 a US District Court ruled that Deere's green and yellow had been a "famous" mark since as early as the late 1960s. It permanently barred Fimco, which sells agricultural equipment as Ag Spray Equipment, from using the colours after finding Fimco had picked them on purpose to create an association with Deere. Decades of the same two colours, machine after machine, had turned paint into property.

Finding something you can own is the starting point of industrial branding.

Both stories follow the same pattern. Neither colour was chosen because it made the product work better. Each was chosen to identify the company. Then it was repeated relentlessly until the market did the remembering.

How to find what you can actually own

Pull out your website, a brochure, a recent tender response and a photo of your vehicles or product. Then run four tests.

1. Cover the logo. Would a customer still know it's you? If not, your logo is carrying the whole load.

2. Ask what job each asset does. If something makes the product safer, more visible or easier to use, your competitors need it too. Keep it, but don't count it as your brand.

3. Read your own copy. SitePro's own words became evidence against it. If your marketing describes your look as a feature, you're teaching the market that it's a feature and not a signal that it's you.

4. Pick one thing and commit. It could be a colour nobody in your sector uses, a shape, a way of photographing your work, or a line you say every time. Then use it everywhere, for years, for longer than feels comfortable.

A quick caveat: registering a trademark is a job for an IP lawyer. Being distinctive, though, is a strategy decision, and you can start on it today.

Strategy first, then the paint

The tempting fix is a new logo. It's usually the wrong one. Distinctiveness starts with deciding what you stand for and what genuinely sets you apart. After that, you choose assets that carry that meaning and nothing else. Design comes second, always.

Your brand is your first sales rep. If it turns up to the job dressed like everyone else on site, nobody will remember it when the next tender lands.

Where to start

Not sure if your brand is distinctive or just dressed for the job? Take nim's free 2-minute Industrial Brand Health Check. It scores where your brand is costing you work and shows you what to fix first. Two minutes, and you'll know where you stand.