Usain Bolt's celebration pose and other unusual trademarks

Athletics superstar Usain Bolt wants to trademark his famous celebration pose.

The pose - in which Bolt leans to the side, drawing one arm back while the other points straight out - became very famous during the sprinter's career, in which he set world records and was known as the fastest man on Earth.

The former Olympic champion submitted an application to use a logo of his pose with the US Patent and Trademark Office last week.

The Usain Bolt logo

The application shows that he plans to use the logo on products such as sunglasses and sports clothing.

A trademark helps give legal protection to a product or an idea, so other people can't just copy it.

A trademark can be a name, word, phrase, symbol design or picture.

Here are some other unusual or unexpected examples of things that have become trademarks...

The Eiffel Tower at night

Taking a photo or video of the Eiffel Tower during the day, completely fine. Doing so at night, not so much.

The famous French monument in Paris has such a spectacular lighting display after dark, it's classed as a separate work of art, and is copyrighted.

So, while a holiday photo is probably fine, it means you cannot publish a picture in a magazine, newspaper or use it to promote anything without permission from the copyright owner - Société d'Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel - who run the landmark.

Darth Vader's breathing

It's one of the most nerve-racking sounds in movie history, and definitely something you'd want to avoid hearing if you're stuck in a dark corridor in the Star Wars universe...

So perhaps, unsurprisingly, the iconic sound of Darth Vader's breathing has also been trademarked by the makers of Star Wars, Lucasfilm.

The sound, which in the story is made through Darth Vader's life-supporting suit, was actually created by breathing through a scuba diving mask.

The phrase 'superhero'

Despite the word 'super hero' being the go-to name for anyone with a cape and pants on the outside of their tights, 'super hero' is actually jointly trademarked by Marvel and DC Comics.

So for any books, comics, TV shows or films that aren't Marvel or DC, that happen to have heroes who are also super, they have to be careful about when and where they use the phrase 'super hero' - Especially when it comes to advertising, promotion or selling a product.

So for example, you couldn't release a brand new comic book with 'superheroes' in the title, but you can refer to characters as superheroes within the pages of the comic itself.

Taylor Swift's cats

Taylor Swift applied to have her cats trademarked so that she could use them as part of her official merchandise, such as clothing, phone accessories, cat colouring books and toys.

The cats, named Meredith Grey, Olivia Benson & Benjamin Button Swift, are often featured on Taylor's social media posts and as a kitten, Benjamin actually first met Taylor on the set of her music video for "ME!".

iPhone 'slide to unlock'

Apple trademarked a 'slide-to-unlock' feature on their iPhone smartphones.

These days phones open by either recognising your face, or a fingerprint, but to unlock older versions of the iPhone owners had to swipe their finger across the screen.

In fact, Apple sued rival company Samsung for $119.6 million for using a similar function on their smartphones.