Trademark for pizza smells?

Well, I'm not too sure about Lithuanian trademark law, but there's an interesting story regarding one outfits attempt to trademark the smell of their pizza. I've written previously about tastes and smells in trademarks. It is possible to get marks for scents and smells, but it generally needs to be something that everyone can readily identify, and there there is no doubt as to the particular scent. An example is grass. One can have fresh cut grass smell, the smell of hay, the smell of clover, rotting grass, burning grass, etc. One does not immediately know the proper scent.

That is where our Lithuanian pizza people may have problems: what type of pizza do we smell? White pizza? Hawaiian style (with ham and pineapple)? Wood oven pizza from NY? Chicago style pizza? Obviously there are many different scents and flavors of pizza, so one cannot immediately describe the pizza smell in a general manner to the public at large.

Another problem our pizza guys may have is that the smell of pizza is descriptive. You cannot have a trademark that is merely descriptive of the underlying goods or services, and I think that the smell of pizza immediately describes the goods. Now if for some reason their pizza smelled like eggs, and everyone identified that only with that particular pizzeria, then they may have an argument. Secondary meaning is a showing that your particular mark, even if descriptive, is attached and associated with your goods or services. An example could be "Jiffy Lube." It's quite clear what that means, but because of their advertising, everyone knows the mark and the services.

I have a sore spot for pizza myself, hence my distaste for this trademark attempt. I'm from NY, and spent 2.5 years working in a pizzeria in college...