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Tarzan’s famous cry could summon animals from the jungle but appears to have had little influence over the beasts of European bureaucracy. After a ten-year legal battle the apeman’s distinctive yell has been rejected as an EU registered trademark.

With a fortune to be made from ringtones, advertising and computer games, the literary estate of Edgar Rice Burroughs, the author who created Tarzan, is keen to protect the sound. But the EU trademark authority has ruled that, although it is possible to protect sounds that can be represented by musical notes, Tarzan’s cry does not qualify.

The application described the yell as “consisting of five distinct phases, namely sustain, followed by ululation, followed by sustain, but at a higher frequency, followed by ululation, followed by sustain at the starting frequency”. It even included a spectrogram of the cry, which dates from the first “talking” Tarzan film starring Johnny Weissmüller.

But the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM) (Trade Marks and Designs) ruled that the graphic did not clearly explain the sound. “It is impossible to recognise from the image as filed whether the sound phenomena depicted therein is a human voice or something else, eg, the tune of violins or bells or a dog’s bark,” it said. “Nobody would be able to hum the Tarzan yell from the spectrogram and nobody reads spectrograms for entertainment.”

Stephen James, a partner in R G C Jenkins & Co, the London-based intellectual-property firm that lodged the application, said: “I have spent the past ten years trying to get Tarzan’s yell trademarked but the difficulty has been putting a sound down on paper.

“We say that anybody, from the age of 5 to 105, who heard that sound would say it is Tarzan. There is still a lot of interest from people who want to license the Tarzan name and also to use the yell.”

Mr James has made a fresh application that includes a sound file, as allowed under new EU rules. This is now under consideration, and he must wait to see if there are any objections to its registration.

Weissmüller said that his yell had been inspired by yodelling and that he won a yodelling contest as a boy. However, MGM often claimed that its sound department had augmented the actor’s shout with various animal sounds. Other legends claim that an operatic tenor was used to record part of the sequence.

Call of the wild

— The first time that Edgar Rice Burroughs refers to Tarzan’s yell is when the hero slays Kerchak, leader of the band of Great Apes that had killed his parents

— “Withdrawing the knife that had so often rendered him master of far mightier muscles than his own, Tarzan of the Apes placed his foot upon the neck of his vanquished enemy, and once again, loud through the forest rang the fierce, wild cry of the conqueror. And thus came the young Lord Greystoke into the kingship of the Apes”

— Actors who played Tarzan included Elmo Lincoln, the first screen Tarzan; Johnny Weissmüller, winner of five Olympic swimming gold medals and the first speaking Tarzan in 1932; and Gordon Weschkul, whose 19in biceps got him the role after 200 others had been tested

Source: www.imdb.com

Scream like Tarzan and win DVDs

Enter our contest for the most authentic jungle call and land yourself a Tarzan film box set plus 9 other DVDs, including Out of Africa and the Last King of Scotland.

To enter call 0845 124 0 125. Leave your name and contact telephone number and your "Tarzan jungle call". The winner will be the person who, in the judge's opinion, provides the most authentic call.

The prize comes courtesy of HMV, the UK & Ireland's leading DVD specialist, offering the widest range of films across 240 stores nationwide and online at www.hmv.com with free home delivery.

Competition Terms and Conditions

Competition closes Friday November 2 at midday. Entrants must be 18 or over. Winner will be notified by telephone. Calls cost up to 4p per minute from a BT landline (Calls from some operators or mobile providers may vary). Judge's decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into. The winner and the two other best entries may be used as part of a feature on timesonline and entrants consent to their entry being used for this purpose. Prize courtesy of HMV. Please read our Privacy Policy at www.nidp.com
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