T-Mobile Claims Trademark In the Color Magenta

An anonymous reader writes "Yesterday Engadget Mobile received a nice letter from Deutsche Telekom / T-Moblie demanding that they stop using the color magenta on engadgetmobile.com. ("Yep, seriously" they say.) Today several sites have gone magenta in a show of solidarity."

Comments

ROFL

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, I needed a good laugh.

Re:ROFL

[Missing_dc]

I hear you.

I was wondering if today would go by without /. getting April 1st-ed.

Re:ROFL

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

I'm gonna trade mark the Sky.

Hey, hey! You, you! Get offa my cloud!

Re:ROFL

[Blikkie]

I wish it were a joke. When this came into the Dutch news 6 months ago or something, some people started the Free Magenta movement. T-mobile NL claimed that they were ordered to claim the colour in Dutch copyright by Deutsche Telecom AG.

Re:ROFL

[odourpreventer]

It's not copyright, it's trademark. I know it's possible to trademark colours in USA, but you cannot (at least until recently) trademark colours in the EU. You can trademark a pattern in a combination with colour(s), but even then it's not certain.

Re:ROFL

[fyrewulff]

You can't trademark colors. You can't even have colors when registering your trademark. This is so you don't have to trademark every possible color combination of your mark, you just register the "shape" of the mark.

Re:ROFL

[odourpreventer]

You can't trademark colors

It has been done, in the US.

This is so you don't have to trademark every possible color combination of your mark

Not marks or logos or whatever. Patterns. It is possible to trademark a pattern with a colour. For instance, the Swedish bed manufacturer Hästens managed to trademark a blue plaid pattern. Whether that trademark is valid outside Sweden is another issue of course.

Re:ROFL

[ltrm]

I'm afraid Murdock got there first.... http://www.sky.com/

Re:ROFL

[azav]

What is ironic here is that T-Mobile's Magenta (RAL 4010 - visible here: http://www.e-paint.co.uk/RAL_Colourchart.asp ) doesn't look like the magenta in the RAL chart. It's obviously a different RGB value.

http://www.telekom.com/dtag/cms/content/dt/en/startpage
T-Mobile Magenta = RGB E2 00 74

http://www.e-paint.co.uk/RAL_Colourchart.asp
RAL 4010 = RGB C7 36 79

Re:ROFL

[Russ Nelson]

Interesting. The t-mobile.com website uses RGB e7 00 73 -- pretty close but no cigar.

Re:ROFL

[Missing_dc]

Hang on guys, let me break out my handy spectrodensitometer and we'll get some readings.

or we can just ask www.XRITE.com to compare them for us.

A throwback to the Roman Empire?

[CRCulver]

I know this is humour, but it makes you think about how dumb things were in Rome at some points, where if you weren't nobility, wearing purple would get you killed.

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

[Mursk]

Not totally sure what your point is. There are plenty of places in the world today where wearing the "wrong" color will get you killed.

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

[Jeremy Erwin]

If you weren't a noble, could you even afford a purple cloak? Today's purple dyes are cheap because they are synthetic.

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

[CRCulver]

Just to back that up, there is for instance this passage from the Penguin edition of Marcellinus's The Later Roman Empire: A.D. 354-378 :

Next the affair of the [unauthorised] royal robe was investigated, and after the workers in purple had been tortured and had admitted the making of a short sleveless tunic, a man named Maras was brought forward.

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

[Zedekiah]

If you wear magenta, however, you probably deserve it.

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

[Deadstick]

That's precisely why it was considered a royal color.

rj

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

[Daimanta]

Describe nobility. Nobility as we know it know is an invention of the Ancien Régime.

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

[irn_bru]

Leave Glasgow out of this.

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

[Anonymous Coward]

You could still have been a wealthy merchant without being a noble - a regular pleb wouldn't be able to afford purple dye, of course, but a number of people might.

Also, it should be noted that only the Roman emperor was allowed to wear an entirely purple piece of clothing at all. Senators (that is, those from the senatorial class) were allowed a broad purple stripe on their tunics; equites (knights) were allowed a thin purple stripe. So even a thin purple stripe (much less expensive than full purple) could get you into trouble.

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

[STrinity]

This isn't humor -- the story came out yesterday, March 31st.

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't this also apply to women?

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

[noidentity]

If you weren't a noble, could you even afford a purple cloak? Today's purple dyes are cheap because they are synthetic.

And purple pixels are even cheaper.

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

[OldFish]

Not if you live in San Francisco.

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

[Sanat]

Especially if you live in San Francisco

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

[timeOday]

Not totally sure what your point is. There are plenty of places in the world today where wearing the "wrong" color will get you killed.

Here's the point: we shouldn't be one of those places.

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

[budgenator]

When I read the article that it dawned on me that the color on the T-Mobile logo isn't magenta anyways the logo #e42384, and magenta is #ff00ff!

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

[dgatwood]

And heaven help you if you were caught wearing purple underwear.

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

[rainmayun]

You could always steal it.

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

[Swampash]

Are you referring to the toga praetexta, the toga pulla, toga picta, or a variation of the toga trabea, and as worn by men, women, citizens, freedmen, plebeians, patricians, quirites, priests, members of the Senate, or some other group?

Actually, I'm gonna go with "not knowing what you're talking about".

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

[kylehase]

Roman Salvation Army stores?

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

[KDR_11k]

I recall hearing about the trademark years ago, back when DT was privatized IIRC.

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

[hotwatermusic]

what about light urple?

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

[Rand Race]

"Nobility" is something of an anachronism when applied to ancient Rome. Patrician and plebian were the major classes of the era and since, at least, the formulation of the twelve tablets (ca. 450 BCE) plebians were allowed to become curule magistrates which entitled one to wear the toga praetexta with a broad purple stripe as an adult (all freeborn male children were entitled to wear it). The toga picta, which was all purple, was reserved for kings, some priests, generals celebrating a triumph, the preator urbanus during particular religious rites and, during the imperial periods, consuls and emperors. Of those, only the kingship and some of the priestly offices were reserved for patricians and the kingship was abolished in 509 BCE while for every priesthood denied a pleb there was another denied to patricians.

What they would punish you for wasn't, so much, wearing purple but, rather, impersonating an official or, depending on the legal climate of the time, conspicuous consumption (which applied to all clothing, not just the toga). The former might well get your ass tossed off the Tarpian Rock sure, but the latter would only get you heavily fined. And if you could afford Tyrian purple cloth you could afford the fine.

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

[Sandbags]

Um, yea. T-mobile color is a blue shade.

Did ya happen to notice it was filed YESTERDAY... April 1?

Damn, and i though /.ers were better than that :)

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey Christopher,
Do you ever wonder why you inspire such hatred from people on the Internet? I mean, seriously - take a look at what people think of you. People don't like you.

If 1 person calls you an asshole, you can shrug it off but when 20 people do, maybe you're the problem?

Think about it d-bag.

they have a point

[seanadams.com]

The title of the page has "t-mobile" in huge letter in magenta, as part of the words "engadget-mobile"

I could totally believe that a non-technical (ok, stupid) person might mistake this for an official t-mobile site.

branding consists of colors, words, typefaces, graphics, and this site mimics a couple of tmobile's elements. It doesn't seem to be a parody or any other such form of protected use.

on that note

[nih]

i just got a trademark on the the colour blue, watch out IBM!

Are they kidding?

[Whuffo]

Trademark on a color? Next thing you know they'll want trademarks on letters or digits.

Any company that wishes to trademark a logo (or other trade dress) should be required to not use things that are already in common usage. Imagine if the American Heart Association went after everyone else who used the color red in their logo?

There's a limited number of colors, letters, and digits. Choosing one of those and expecting it to be unique is stupid.

Re:Are they kidding?

[0100010001010011]

Caterpillar has Cat Yellow
John Deere has John Deere Green

Re:Are they kidding?

[Naughty Bob]

>Trademark on a color? Next thing you know they'll want trademarks on letters or digits.

This is quite a well established type of trademark. There's a brand of Chocolate in the UK which has successfully prevented other chocolatiers from using 'their' shade of purple. But that's kinda the point here-

T-Mobile is well within their rights to stop other companies using their trademarked colour, IF those companies are competing in the same market. T-Mobiles lawyers must be on crack (or maybe they are hoping for judges who are), because Engadget Mobile it a reviews website, and NOT a telephony company. Engadget don't sell phones, or airtime, and so there is no room for potential consumer confusion.

This litigation is doomed to failure.

Re:Are they kidding?

[db32]

You mean everyday things like Apple and Windows shouldn't be trademarked? Additionally, trademarks don't extend outside of the industry, so AHA could only sue others in the medical industry.

Re:Are they kidding?

[Klaus_1250]

It is not according to the European Courts. You can trademark a colour for a specific market (say, telecommunications). The problem is that many telco's now see the Internet as their market and thus assume their trademark applies their as well. Orange has been doing the same for years, threating websites that use orange on their website or in their domainname (yes, I lost my domain / website as well, because it isn't all talk, they really sue and are prepared to fight it to the European Court). So, no orange, no magenta, which colour will be next?

IMHO, granting trademark on colours is another Tragedy of the Commons.

Re:Are they kidding?

[PitaBred]

The point is, I can paint my house Cat Yellow or John Deere Green without worrying about being sued by either company. Hell, I could paint my car that color. As long as I didn't try to pass it off as related to those companies.

And that's the problem... T-Mobile is suing Engadget Mobile for painting their house T-Mobile Magenta.

Re:Are they kidding?

[canajin56]

No, they are claiming trademark on "t-mobile", which is their company's name and registered trademark. The issue is that the website noticed that their name ends in "t-mobile", although the "t" is part of another word. So they changed just the "t-mobile" to be in "T-mobile"'s company colours. Its like there was a website called "Backslash Dotage" for some reason, and one day out of the blue they decided that just "slash Dot" would appear in teal, while the rest of their name remained black. One might think they were trying to call attention to that part of their name in particular? A trademarked portion, perhaps? And the "random" choice of colour might be somewhat less than random? If /.'s compalined would they be trying to say that they own teal?

Re:Are they kidding?

[BeeRockxs]

Noone is suing anyone.
If you had bothered to RTFA, you'd know that T-Mobiles lawyers just asked Engadget not to use that color.

Re:Are they kidding?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please tell me this story is linked to today's date (er... yesterday for those of us already in April 2).

Re:Are they kidding?

[Ron_Fitzgerald]

Microsoft has already done it:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29130

Ahh...memories :)

Re:Are they kidding?

[poot_rootbeer]

Engadget don't sell phones, or airtime, and so there is no room for potential consumer confusion.

No, but they regularly enga(d)ge in phone reviews and commentary on the industry in which T-Mobile operates. They are part of the mobile phone business.

If Engadget were to post rumors regarding the specs of an upcoming T-Mobile handset, there could be a real risk of consumer confusion over whether the information is from an official T-Mo source or not.

T-Mobile's request seems perfectly cromulent to me.

Re:Are they kidding?

[gdog05]

Could Slashdot ask anyone who uses #FFFF00 to remove it, because that's Anonymous Coward Yellow?

Re:Are they kidding?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude... what is today's date.
Moron.

Re:Are they kidding?

[Naughty Bob]

>No, but they regularly enga(d)ge in phone reviews and commentary on the industry in which T-Mobile operates. They are part of the mobile phone business. Trademarks don't cover that, the law's only about preventing a direct loss of sales which could result from such confusion.

Re:Are they kidding?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shurely the colour orange is owned by EasyJet? :-)

Re:Are they kidding?

[oscrmyer]

Its not trademarking colors its the theme that is being used. I mean look at the page it looks like a whole t-mobile add. Plus They are known for magenta. I am sure Victoria secret would have something to say if ford started to make a pink car that said "Think Pink" on it in a like font. I see both sides, also lets not forget the Johnson & Johnson v. Red Cross of something not too far from this. http://www.redcross.org/pressrelease/0,1077,0_314_6907,00.html

Re:Are they kidding?

[stratjakt]

Barbie Pink (tm) has been trademarked forever.

This isn't new, there's plenty of precedent, and whether you like it or not, T-Mobile is on the right side of this one.

Re:Are they kidding?

[zbuffered]

Usually when these things get posted to slashdot they seem pretty cut-and-dry, and I can't argue with your specific example, but there are some mitigating factors here:
1) T-Mobile's letter was nice (this shouldn't factor in court or anything, but...)
  a) they stated they were "obligated" to defend their trademark
  b) they specifically kissed engadget's ass
  c) there's no doubt that engadget's current logo infringes (this was done intentionally, as a FUCK YOU to T-Mobile)
2) Engadget Mobile specifically deals in the area (mobile phones ya know) that T-Mobile deals in

What if you painted your tractor repair shop John Deere Green? Or used it in your logo?

I'm not sure how this is going to turn out, but I'm not going to cancel my T-Mobile service that I don't have out of spite or anything. Bloggers can be whiny sons of bitches, just like lawyers.

Re:Are they kidding?

[satoshi1]

Engadget Mobile sells mobile phones and mobile phone services? Or wait, does T-Mobile report on news regarding mobile devices? I'm confused, help me out.

Re:Are they kidding?

[Anonymous Coward]

well apparently they do have a copyright on magenta in Europe, or at least in Germany..

http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/11/04/beware-t-mobile-owns-the-color-magenta/

Re:Are they kidding?

[Anonymous Coward]

Noone is suing anyone.

Peter Noone is suing anyone?

That seems a bit excessive.

Re:Are they kidding?

[Anonymous Coward]

I trademark 04012008.

Re:Are they kidding?

[Anonymous Coward]

UPS has UPS Brown

Note that in general, trademarking a color is specific to the business. Other shippers can't use UPS's Brown, but you can make a tractor in UPS Brown.

Similarly, other tractor makers can't use John Deer Green, but a package shipper isn't prohibited from using the color.

Re:Are they kidding?

[cpricejones]

Who cares. Let 'em have magenta. Now if they want fuchsia, we've got a problem ...

Re:Are they kidding?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps they're acting very preemptively against having an "Apple" pulled on them. When Apple Computer was founded, Apple Records "let it be" (bad pun, boo, hiss) as long as the prior stayed out of the music business.

Now, who's arguably the #1 name in PMPs and online music sales?

Engadget Mobile is presently just a li'l website that reviews mobile products. Well, Apple Inc used to be a li'l microcomputer company run out of a garage.

Re:Are they kidding?

[urcreepyneighbor]

Caterpillar has Cat Yellow
John Deere has John Deere Green Cowboy Neal Cream

Re:Are they kidding?

[DrYak]

Trademark on a color?

It's Deutsche Telekom. It's in Europe.
Here in Europe, the state sponsored university hospital tried to sue our local medical student association because we made a spoof of their logo for the association, this kind of stupidity happens. But, on the other hand, as this is Europe, not suit-trigger-happy USA, the suit wasn't allowed*, and the students even pulled a weirder spoof as their next iteration of the logo.

* - In most country were trademarks are valid, a company has to prove that you are confusing their consumer on purpose with your too much related trademark infringing material. Basically, you need to be actively phishing to get sued in Europe.

Next thing you know they'll want trademarks on letters or digits.

As far as I know, in the USA you can't trademark, copyright or patent a typeface, only its name and the actual file holding the data.
(Otherwise the people holding the Imaginary-Property rights of most fonts would basically control press, or force independent publishers to use "wing ding" to print their work).
Thus the name "Times new roman" is trademarked, the files containing those fonts for Microsoft Windows have a special license, but that doesn't stop Linux distribution to provide their own set of similar fonts (Thorndale, BitStream & DejaVu Serif, FreeSerif, Nimbus Roman, Linux Libertine, etc.) which looks very much like the original fonts.

There's a limited number of colors, letters, and digits.

Digits: And some people have used this reasoning applying it to computer code. After all, computer code is a big stream of binary digits. Back then a team of mathematicians used this idea to publish a number derived from a DeCSS binary with interesting mathematical properties.

Choosing one of those and expecting it to be unique is stupid.

It's not exactly that T-Mobile "owns a color".
The way trademark law functions, is that T-Mobile design a peculiar logo : fonts, colors, shape etc.
They trade mark that logo, and once they secure the trademark, they can sue whoever might purposefully try to use the same or almost the same logo to trick users into confusing the companies.

So what they are claiming against engadget isn't "You can't use this color, this color is mine".
What they are claiming is "Your logo looks too much like ours because of the color, and your tricking our customer into thinking your website is ours". (more details on this november post)
And that will be hard to prove on a european court because one sells mobile service whereas the other only publishes tech news and reviews. Thus, the websites are hard to confuse. And even if some idiot managed to confuse them, Deutsche Telekom wouldn't be losing any money, as engadget doesn't sell competing products, nor any other product at all.

Re:Are they kidding?

[Naughty Bob]

Perhaps they're acting very preemptively against having an "Apple" pulled on them.

Yes, that's what they're trying.

But just like the Apple Corps./Apple Computers situation, they won't be able to successfully litigate until Engadget-Mobile start selling phones/airtime.

(In their original situations, Apple Corps had to refrain from entering the computer biz, and Apple Computers had to stay away from the music biz. They were both allowed to use 'Apple', just as Engadget/T-Mobile can use magenta now. When the iTunes store opened, Apple Computers paid a bunch of cash, supposedly $30M, to Apple Corps for the privilege)

Re:Are they kidding?

[emjoi_gently]

Well from that point of view, the Telekom magenta is a darker colour to the Engadget magenta. Engadget is not stealing the precise hue that T-Mobile uses.
Nor are they using the same font.
Both logos have a gratutitous use of excess dots, but in quite different ways.

Re:Are they kidding?

[Workaphobia]

Indeed. I expected a nastygram, but the letter was very straight-forward and, aside from presupposing that engadget would no doubt agree to the change, fair. Probably the nicest legal letter from a company I've ever seen posted online. The reaction was overblown and unnecessary.

Re:Are they kidding?

[arminw]

...Next thing you know they'll want trademarks on letters or digits.....

Yes lets get together on this. I'll trademark the letter "e" both upper and lowercase and you take the digits "0" and "1" for starters. How about it? Is it a deal?

Re:Are they kidding?

[Ethan Allison]

Engadget Mobile is a blog about cell phones that uses pink in their title (this is their normal logo). It could, in theory, be confusing to some people looking for T-Mobile. Which is apparently a big enough "could be" for Deutsche Telekom (T-Mo's parent company) and their lawyers.

Re:Are they kidding?

[Anonymous Coward]

Intel already tried this on the Pentium processors, see here or here or here I would post more, but google is a great resource

Re:Are they kidding?

[The-Bus]

The purple of Milka is trademarked as well.

Re:Are they kidding?

[amRadioHed]

However nicely the letter was phrased it is still an idiotic request.

Re:Are they kidding?

[amRadioHed]

If Engadget were to post rumors regarding the specs of an upcoming T-Mobile handset, there could be a real risk of consumer confusion over whether the information is from an official T-Mo source or not. If only our legal system wasn't based on the assumption that people are morons.

Re:Are they kidding?

[uncoveror]

T-Mobile is owned by Deutsche Telekom. How do you say "April Fools" auf Deutsch?

Re:Are they kidding?

[Roger W Moore]

Trademark on a color? Next thing you know they'll want trademarks on letters or digits.

Well they are T mobile.

Re:Are they kidding?

[Dutch Gun]

I agree... this smacks of a corporate/blogging troll to me. Notice how T-Mobile only asked them to stop using the color magenta in a "trademark-infringing" way. They never claimed that the color magenta was trademarked - it is only trademarked in relation to their logo and corporate identity. In other words, "please don't try to confuse our customers by making it appear our companies are somehow related."

It seemed like a perfectly reasonable request to me. The summary talked of "demanding", but I have to say, that was perhaps the nicest "demand" I've ever heard.

Re:Are they kidding?

[BeeRockxs]

April April!

Re:Are they kidding?

[cfulmer]

But, you could probably not put out a blog called "landscaping gadgets" and use John Deere green. It's likely that somebody will think it's a blog run by John Deere.

Trademark and trade dress are all about customer confusion -- is it reasonable that somebody could go to the engadget mobile site and think it was related to T-mobile? What if the site was reviewing T-mobile services? By my eye, there's a likelihood that somebody will be confused.

A trademark owner has to take affirmative steps to defend the mark against possibly confusing uses by others. If the owner doesn't, then he can lose the mark entirely.

T-Mobile is getting a raw deal on this -- the letter has got to be one of the nicest such letters I have ever seen -- they sound downright apologetic. Heck, they might even be willing to pay for a redesign of the engadget mobile logo. Since they have to send the letter, this is a good way of handling it.

Re:Are they kidding?

[Farcalled]

And I spent my Easter break in Magenta

Re:Are they kidding?

[sc0ob5]

This is quite a well established type of trademark. There's a brand of Chocolate in the UK which has successfully prevented other chocolatiers from using 'their' shade of purple. But that's kinda the point here-

You don't by any chance mean Cadbury do you? There was a case here in Australia where they tried to sue for trademark infringement against another chocolate manufacturer for using their Trademarked purple. Lets just say Cadbury lost.

Here is a news article about it. http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/cadbury-loses-purple-case/2006/04/28/1145861520896.html

Re:Are they kidding?

[Your Pal Dave]

Not to mention Owens-Corning fiberglass insulation and Mary Kay cosmetics.

And that's just shades of pink.

Re:Are they kidding?

[mpe]

Note that in general, trademarking a color is specific to the business. Other shippers can't use UPS's Brown, but you can make a tractor in UPS Brown.

Trademarks are ment to be specific to both a type of business and a geographic area. They must also be distinctive, something which is simply a description of a business or its products is unlikely to be defendable as a trademark. (Unless it contains unique spelling or gramatical errors.)

Similarly, other tractor makers can't use John Deer Green, but a package shipper isn't prohibited from using the color.

Unless John Deer have that green trademarked everywere on the planet then there be many companies supplying agricultural machinary which could use it.

Re:Are they kidding?

[mpe]

No, but they regularly enga(d)ge in phone reviews and commentary on the industry in which T-Mobile operates. They are part of the mobile phone business.

No more than a TV news station becomes part of the airline business when they report on an aircraft crashing or the movie business when they carry stories about movies (or people involved in movies). Even if they have regular segments to cover movies.

Re:Are they kidding?

[mpe]

You don't by any chance mean Cadbury do you? There was a case here in Australia where they tried to sue for trademark infringement against another chocolate manufacturer for using their Trademarked purple. Lets just say Cadbury lost.

Maybe they forgot to register their purople with the Australian authorities. Maybe they tried and were told that even if they could do that in the UK they couldn't in Australia. Maybe the Australians (quite sensibly) only consider an entire logo or packaging to be trademarkable.

Re:Are they kidding?

[azakem]

Noone is suing anyone.
If you had bothered to RTFA, you'd know that T-Mobiles lawyers just asked Engadget not to use that color.

In these circumstances, a request not to use a color claimed as a trademark is likely a prelude to a lawsuit should the targeted party refuse to comply with the request. T-Mobile's lawyers will probably move quickly against any perceived encroachment on T-Mobile's claimed trademark territory so as to prevent any possibility of losing the mark as applied to consumer electronics webpages through laches. The argument here would most likely be dilution rather than direct consumer confusion.

Um... I guess that rang in legalese, so here is the standard disclaimer: IANAL, but I play one on slashdot. Any real lawyers want to comment on my ramblings?

Re:Are they kidding?

[Workaphobia]

No, it simply is not. 1) Colors can easily constitute a major portion of a trademark (IANAL). 2) Companies are obligated to protect their trademarks as closely as is reasonable, lest they lose it to the public domain (if that term is proper for non-copyright-related IP). Given that the two entities share a similar field, and that it is the same word ("mobile") that is colorized, it would be irresponsible of T-mobile to not consider this as a potential threat to their trademark. I'm not saying they would win if it came down to a court case, or even that it would be worth taking any kind of more severe legal action than what they already did, but I see no reason to assume that the request is invalid.

Re:Are they kidding?

[Jesus_666]

But now imagine there's a TV station devoted to reviewing movies and they call themselves "Next Century Foxx", with a logo that has the words stacked on top of each other. What do you think, would someone without insight into New Century Foxx's business believe they actually are a 20th Century Fox front? Damn sure they would, even though 20th Century makes movies and New Century makes movie reviews.

Re:Are they kidding?

[Jesus_666]

The Deutsche Telekom (and its various T-subsidiaries) is somewhat reasonable about it. They're generally cool with magenta websites unless the website is in the same area as one of their businesses. However, they take issues with German websites beginning with "T-". Sites like "t-beutel.de" ("t-beutel" "t-bag", the pun works in both languages) have been killed off because DT believes itself to be the sole owner of the T-Dash prefix.

Re:Are they kidding?

[Garrick68]

*shudders* I don't want to think about Cowboy Neal's "Cream"

Re:Are they kidding?

[iainl]

Part of me wants to agree with you that it's a reasonable request. After all, it was certainly a lot more polite than the response Engadget gave.

But the difficult part is deciding what to do about it. Change the colour of the logo, presumably. Would you recommend using Vodaphone Red, O2 Blue or Orange, um, Orange? Well, no. I'm sure there are plenty of other carriers outside the UK that use the rest of the spectrum as well.

If Engadget used the exact same shade, I'd have more time for them, but as the article clearly shows, they're different purples.

Re:Are they kidding?

[drew]

T-Mobile is getting a raw deal on this -- the letter has got to be one of the nicest such letters I have ever seen -- they sound downright apologetic.

You should try to find the one that Linden Labs sent to the guy who made the "Get a First Life" web site.

Re:Are they kidding?

[Gizzmonic]

No, it simply is not. 1) Colors can easily constitute a major portion of a trademark (IANAL). 2) Companies are obligated to protect their trademarks as closely as is reasonable, lest they lose it to the public domain (if that term is proper for non-copyright-related IP). Given that the two entities share a similar field, and that it is the same word ("mobile") that is colorized, it would be irresponsible of T-mobile to not consider this as a potential threat to their trademark

In other words, "don't hate the player, hate the game." Sorry, but your defense is the same one Radio Shack used when they threatened to sue every website that uses the word "Shack." The same defense that FedEx used to sue a coffee kiosk called "Federal Espresso." None of these are legitimate trademark dilution concerns. They're just big company lawyers stirring up trouble. Control freaks. Engadget is right to defy them.

Re:Are they kidding?

[Workaphobia]

Well of course it's the same "defense" - that's the only basis for taking this kind of action, isn't it? That is, regardless of the legitimacy of this particular claim, it would still necessarily fall within your criteria, which consists of "they say they're doing what the law says they should". I don't know the specifics of those other cases (the only real trademark abuse I'm familiar with offhand is the guy who threatened everyone under the sun using the word "stealth" in part or incidentally). However, I'm not saying that when held under scrutiny T-mobile's claim is valid, it just *appears* sufficiently potentially valid to warrant discussion. It is not "idiotic".

Re:Are they kidding?

[Workaphobia]

Good point. That's the kind of thing they should have fired back at T-mobile in an email.

Slashdot Participation?

[Kelson]

Slashdot could join in by reviving the OMG Ponies theme. Pink is close enough to magenta, right?

Re:Slashdot Participation?

[owlnation]

Slashdot could join in by reviving the OMG Ponies theme. Pink is close enough to magenta, right?

T-Mobile calls that color "magenta" but any normal person sees it as pink. It's pink. Clearly. Also, it's an horrific shade of pink, you'd be completely crazy to use it in a brand - unless you are indeed making toy ponies. The OMG Ponies theme burned our eyes, so just think what hell it must be to work for Deutsche Telekom (the pink thing just the tip of the iceberg there too).

One firm being that stupid is surprising, two is stupefying.

Re:Slashdot Participation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot will not join because they are just a bunch of whining little Linux pussies...

Re:Slashdot Participation?

[RoboRay]

Please don't.

Re:Slashdot Participation?

[Provocateur]

Quit beating around the bush. Why don't you just come right out and say, Dear Slashdot, could you please please pretty please re-run the OMG Poniez April 1 classic? We'll be bff!!111!!!

Sheesh

Way to Stick It To Your Sponsor

[eldavojohn]

Did anyone else find it uncomfortably odd that there was a big magenta T-Mobil ad right in the middle of Engadget's page as they "stuck it to them."

You know, refusing to host their magenta ads might be a better way to stick it to them ... or perhaps they were asking you not to use magenta so that users wouldn't confuse the ad with the site?

Re:Way to Stick It To Your Sponsor

[Mortiss]

I am using an Adblock, you insensitive clod!

Re:Way to Stick It To Your Sponsor

[SanityInAnarchy]

I didn't see that ad, but I find it to be icing on the cake, honestly. What's happening here is, at the very moment you're hating T-Mobile for being such asshats, you see one of their ads -- and thus hate them more.

And on top of it all, T-Mobile is paying for the privilege of being featured in an article on how stupid they're being!

Re:Way to Stick It To Your Sponsor

[FredFredrickson]

Could this be a publicity stunt for T-Mobile?

Re:Way to Stick It To Your Sponsor

[cnettel]

They've already gone after TeliaSonera for the same matter (the magenta tone in their logos). It seems more like genuine legal dementia than a publicity stunt.

Look out /.

[russlar]

I'm going to trademark slashdot-green.

What a strange day...

[Anonymous Coward]

All the stories seem like April fools day jokes but they're actually real, or so it seems... Is there a conspiracy going on or something?

Re:What a strange day...

[Wiseman1024]

Why does this look like a joke? It's perfectly possible, considering how far have our plutocracies allowed corporations to go. If the crazed bastards at Monsanto can patent living beings (guess the only thing they have still to patent is the "Enjoy your cancer(TM)" slogan), I don't see why a telecom wouldn't be able to patent a colour, or a person's name, or the way you rip a fart.

Re:What a strange day...

[Anonymous Coward]

All the stories seem like April fools day jokes but they're actually real, or so it seems... Is there a conspiracy going on or something? Yes! Yes! A consciousness conspiracy. Care to join?

Re:they have a point

[Anonymous Coward]

The title of the page has "t-mobile" in huge letter in magenta, as part of the words "engadget-mobile"

Except the mobile part of the "t-mobile" is gray.

Re:they have a point

[Anonymous Coward]

If you'd read engadget's article, you'd know that they changed their normal title artwork for today (Please check your calendar) as a formal "Go Forth and Procreate" to Deutsch Telecom.

Ok ok,

[v(*_*)vvvv]

the color thing I understand, but look at engadgetmobile.com!!! I literally thought it was a t-mobile fan site or something. They high-light T-Mobile in the "engadge T-MOBILE" title, and that might push some buttons. I don't think this is just a color thing, because the mimicry is a bit beyond just color.

If it is the case that they exaggerated the color issue hoping the internet would go hooplah over it, then they are smarter than they let on... I expect they'll have a press clarifying their intent once some of the buzz dies down just to get another spot on slashdot. Of course, this is just speculation. I actually sort of *wish* they were smarter than they let on... because they let on to be pretty stupid :(

Re:Ok ok,

[v(*_*)vvvv]

Oh, never mind, so they did it on purpose. Well, that will really help, because in protest it looks like they have made a legitimate violation.

Re:Ok ok,

[v(*_*)vvvv]

"As a trademark owner, from time to time Deutsche Telekom looks at usage that could lead to confusion in the marketplace." I have to side with the Lawyers (or at least the above comment). I have never seen this web site before, but it looks like it is a review/consumer driven site that in not necessarily corporate friendly, and I do see how some consumers (idiots) would confuse this site as being T-Mobile related. Of course give credit to the graphics guy for making such a corporate-looking site that made a mammoth corporation reveal its insecurities.

With that said making color the issue is probably the result of having nothing else to go on. Their design is parody at worst.

It's lawyers adding up hours / protecting the TM

[jokewallpaper]

The letter is a combination of the TMobile trademark lawyers doing what lawyers do...billing hours. Plus, they are protecting the TMoblie trademark. With Trademark law you must prove that you have diligently protect your TM by notifying parties of infringement. In every suspected case. With Endgadget there is no confusion or dilution of the TM. But, if someday TMobile has to defend their TM in court against another mobile provider who might use the color..they can haul out the big box of all the letters they sent to everyone who used Magenta and prove they diligently protected their TM

April Fools, right?

[rossz]

I'm looking at the calendar and thinking, "this has to be a joke!". But then I think about all the bullshit trademark/copyright/patent lawsuits of the past few years. I honestly have no idea if this is real or not.

Re:April Fools, right?

[Indefinite, Ephemera]

Certainly the thing about T-Mobile claiming power over magenta has been going on for a while.

http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/11/04/beware-t-mobile-owns-the-color-magenta/

Re:April Fools, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dont forget that in England, the Orange telecom company owns the color orange. BP owns a shade of green in Australia.

http://www.managingip.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=1321377

So what does this mean

[Jodaxia]

for Hello Kitty?

Re:So what does this mean

[ettlz]

I can hear someone learning to play the violin. Poik! Oh dear, sounds like they broke another string.

Re:So what does this mean

[s74ng3r]

Barney will be so pissed.

Re:So what does this mean

[cerberusss]

After contacting the owners' legal team of the Hello Kitty brand, I can safely say: yes, it's still possible to keep wearing your Hello Kitty undergarments.

Re:they have a point

[Hubec]

The magenta "t-mobile" is a temporary response to the letter (in legal terms I believe it's called a raspberry). Their standard logo doesn't look like T-Mobil's at all.

simple solution

[hack slash]

Engadget should just reply saying "We respect your trademark for the color Magenta, however, we are using the colour Magenta."

Re:they have a point

[FiloEleven]

You do realize that they uploaded that logo, the "deceptive" one you're berating, today, which just happens to be April 1? And that they did so specifically to spite T-Mobile? And that they wrote a blog post stating exactly their actions and intent?

Congratulations, you've been had.

Easy Fix

[Sponge Bath]

Just switch to mauve.

UPS Brown

[MachDelta]

Believe it. "Pullman Brown"" (officially "UPS Brown") has been a trademark of United Parcel Service for a looong friggin time. They're pretty aggressive about protecting it too, seeing as how their whole corporate image is tied to the color so strongly ("what can Brown do for you?" etc.)

So unfortunatly, colors being trademarked is nothing new.

Re:UPS Brown

[techno-vampire]

There's a difference here. UPS has trademarked a specific shade of brown, and protects its use. This would be like having the L.A. Dodgers try to trademark blue, instead of just Dodger Blue.

Re:UPS Brown

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a difference, those colors are specially formulated for or by UPS. It isn't actually brown, close, but it isn't. John Deere, AFAIKT does not have a trademark on "John Deere Green", but on the color scheme of green and yellow:
http://www.deere.com/en_US/deerecom/privacy_legal/legalnotice.html

Caterpillar has the same thing going for it as UPS, it hasn't trademarked yellow, but Caterpillar Yellow, not yellow, close, but still not yellow.

There is an infinite number of possible colors, any number of un-named color could be trademarked. 1 gallon of brown with one CC of white is a different color than 1 gallon of brown with 2 CCs of white. Sure, they're not going to look any different to the naked eye, but they are different colors once mixed.

Take some orange, add a little white and a little yellow BAM, new color.

T-Mobile, on the other hand, whether they claim it or not, cannot trademark the color magenta, maybe they can trademark a color scheme with magenta in it, but they cannot trademark magenta. The color magenta has been around longer than every single person alive today: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magenta and a lot older than some shitty cell phone company.

Re:UPS Brown

[N1ck0]

Even if they do own a trademark on Pullman Brown, Trademark is not copyright. The prosecution of a trademark infringement is supposed to have to show customer confusion or loss/harm involved in the others business.

So if you paint your business car Pullman Brown but don't happen to deliver packages, haul freight, offer business supply services there isn't any reasonable harm to UPS. Now if you opened a store that was called the Unified Parchment Sales, and used a brown and tan logo saying 'UPS Store' on the front, you would probably be guilty of causing customer confusion. Most of the areas where UPS is hopefully in people using brown in similar packaging businesses.

Now of course these days people prefer the threaten, hassle, and hustle methodology of convincing smaller companies to give up defending themselves.

Re:UPS Brown

[Jesus_666]

Actually, the Deutsche Telekom has a trademark on a very specific shade of Magenta, RAL 4010. However, due to there being many similar shades of magenta, any shade of magenta might cause someone to confuse an independent mobile phone website with a T-Mobile website. Thus they must move to counter the potential infringement.

Think of the fact that undefended trademarks can vanish - if they don't defend their association between mobile communication ans magenta, they might lose the color trademark their entire corporate design rests on. In Germany they have successfully managed to get magenta universally recognized as "their" color. They can't afford to lose that color. Even if they draw the ire of all geeks worlwide by suing Engadget; the alternative is a direct threat to their corporate design.

Nonwithstanding that so far they just humbly asked Engadget to stop using magenta. They might threaten later, but so far it was not T-Mobile who behaved like a bunch of asshats.

Re:UPS Brown

[iainl]

Right, so purple is out. Lets use Orange instead. Oh.

How about red? Nope, that's Vodaphone's colour.

O2 is blue, so that's also out.

Anyone already got a trademark on aquamarine, is that ok?

Re:UPS Brown

[Anonymous Coward]

"what can Brown do for you?"

You can show me your browneye!

Re:UPS Brown

[russotto]

Even if they do own a trademark on Pullman Brown, Trademark is not copyright. The prosecution of a trademark infringement is supposed to have to show customer confusion or loss/harm involved in the others business.

You're forgetting the winner-take-all rule, also known as the Trademark Anti-dilution Act. If your mark is a "famous" mark, it applies everywhere, not just in your business. UPS Brown would probably qualify; maybe T-mobile magenta would also. Color trademarks and anti-dilution -- two bad ideas that really fuck things up together.

Re:UPS Brown

[techno-vampire]

Yes, the undefended trademark tends to vanish in the haze -- think of both aspirin and kleenex. I wouldn't mind it if they'd limit their defense to their own shade of magenta, but I think they go too far by claiming that any and all shades are too close to theirs to be used, no matter what the context. Where does it stop? Do they eventually start telling people that they have to doctor photographs to take it out?

Re:UPS Brown

[Jesus_666]

Actually, they care only about sectors they themselves are busy in, like mobile communications. It's still a hassle, but that's what you get when a company centers their corporate identity around a color. Still, it's much easier to indulge them than to defend one's right to build a mobile communications-themed website with a magenta-ish background. (Indulging them has the added advantage of not using a rather loud color for large parts of your website. Seriously, Engadget Mobile is pretty eye-hostile with that color scheme.)

By the way, I think aspirin got genericized after one of the world wars. Bayer was forced to release the formula; I think the trademark went with it.

Re:UPS Brown

[N1ck0]

OTOH there is some amount of flexibility in that as well. Paining the siding on your garage UPS brown in some suburb would be a pretty hard sell on how that dilutes the UPS trademark. I'd love to see the face on the judge when he reads the argument for that case.

BTW I do think someone on my block has a garage thats UPS Brown...kinda mid/late-70's but...

Qualitex Co. v. Jacobson Products Co., '91, SCOTUS

[davidwr]

Qualitex Co. v. Jacobson Products Co., Inc. is a 1991 Supreme Court case that said you can trademark a single color in certain circumstances.

Correction: 1995

[davidwr]

Findlaw has the full text.

It's so obvious!

[SSNTails]

The real April Fools on /. is that the web server is probably running on Win2k3 for a day.

Unlikely they care

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like the rest of these perennial stories, it's unlikely they care but it's a situation where you defend your trademarks or lose them. It's better to be safe and send the letter even if you expect no action on it. If it comes up in court later, you have support for your case.

Hehe look at the site!

[Jane Q. Public]

engadget has changed their logo so that the latter part of "engadgetmobile", the "t-mobile" part, is now all in magenta.

Hilarious.

Not the first time

[aberkvam]

This isn't the first time that Deutsche Telekom has tried this. They have also sued a couple of radio stations and an IT firm.

Check out the Free Magenta campaign.

Re:It's lawyers adding up hours / protecting the T

[damsa]

Not really, if you stir up the pot then you are likely to lose your trademark status. Going after phone carriers probably ok. Going after bloggers who gives you free advertisement. Probably pretty stupid move both legally and in the business sense.

Two words

[Anonymous Coward]

Viral marketing. 'nuf said.

Long history of this

[philipp-de]

Here in germany Deutsche Telekom has a long history of claiming ownership for the color magenta. They have sued or sent cease & desist letters to numerous companies using the color magenta in their Logo, Website, etc. Even companies totally unrelated to telecommunication whatsoever.

Free Magenta

[tijmentiming]

Check out this website. It's filled with anti 'T-Mobile owns Meganta' drawings, pictures, comics and graphics.
http://www.freemagenta.nl/

I especially like the one from Michael Wolbert (do a search for his name), somewhere on 1/3 of the page.

Re:Free Magenta

[xenobyte]

Brilliant initiative that free magenta website!

T-Mobile is stupid beyond belief doing this. Their trademark is a *combination* of things, including the color, but also a specific typeface and a trademark name. The color itself is such a general item that polling a stunt like will anger so many people it will create an avalance of badwill against the company. Their legal department must have gone insane.

Re:they have a point

[StormyWeather]

Man, I'm losing my internet cred... I didn't even realize I was Rick Rolled until I read the goo tube comments. I actually learned something from a goo tube comment, someone shoot me so at least my kids get the insurance money.. please.

Re:they have a point

[PopeRatzo]

I'm just about done with April Fool's Day. It's hard to enjoy a holiday for Fools with George W. Bush in the White House.

How's about we make a holiday celebrating smart people with integrity?

Not just color

[wsanders]

The engadget people are dissembling. If you look at http://www.engadgetmobile.com/ the logo, in addition to being magenta, looks like this:

engadgeT--mobile

I think they might have a problem.

Re:Not just color

[wish bot]

They've just changed it - on purpose. I think it's great they've got the balls to do that - so many people pussyfoot around these issues today. What colour are they going to use - seriously?! There is no relationship between engadget and t-mobile, and it never even crossed anyone's mind that there might be until some overly sensitive corporate schmuck brought the lawyers in to write letters.

Re:Not just color

[Jesus_666]

I will repeat wht I (and others) have said before:

1.) If T-Mobile doesn't defend their trademarks they might lose them.
2.) The color magenta is SUPER EXTREMELY ÜBER-IMPORTANT to T-Mobile and its sister companies in Germany. It defines their whole corporate design and every German knows them by this color. They can't afford to lose their color trademark.
3.) The Engadget Mobile logo is similar to T-Mobile's corporate design in more ways than the color - the decorative bar between the words is similar to the "Digits" (small squares) that have been a mainstay of the various T-corporations' corporate design for years.
4.) The letter written by T-Mobile was polite, non-threatening and friendly. They merely asked Engadget to please pick a different color.
5.) Engadget showed that success does not equate professionalism and decided to answer in the most pissy way possible. "We don't have to play nice! We're the internet! Woo!"

I agree that corporations usually are soulless beasts hellbent on making our lives miserable in the name of profit, but T-Mobile is hardly being evil here. They perceive a threat to one of their most important trademarks and before they even get out the legal club they nicely ask Engadget to pick a different color. Given that losing that trademark could cost them millions of Euros and years of lost PR work they're being exceptionally nice.

Re:they have a point

[Iamthecheese]

So they're telling them to fuck off?

Re:they have a point

[conlaw]

I've been a T-Mobile subscriber for about 7 years now and am currently paying them for 4 phones on my family plan.* If asked prior to today, I would have said that "their color" was a shade of aqua-ish blue. When I went to the T-Mobile page after reading the engadget article, it was covered in that horrible magenta. Maybe they should rename the color to "OMG Ponies Pink."

*Now I'm sorry that I'm locked in for about 22 more months.

Re:they have a point

[Plaid Phantom]

And you didn't even rickroll anyone with that link. This is serious.

Nothing new... they did that in germany...

[w4rl5ck]

several times before, always such hideous claims. German "society" told them "this is madness", but it doesn't seem like the listened. Or maybe, new management, new luck? Who knows.

Maybe if the whole WORLD shouts at them, something will get through. Or maybe, even not then. *shrug*

They also sued about telefone book names, colors, and other stuff. IMO: just stupid.

Re:they have a point

[Anonymous Coward]

Like christmas? This santa-guy would have to be pretty smart to manage visiting all the children in the world in a single night, and giving them all the right presents. And few would deny his integrity. Yes, christmas is definitely a holiday celebrating smart people with integrity.

Old News?

[beadfulthings]

Since this "Free Magenta" website has been around for several months in The Netherlands. Lots of food for thought there, such as what do we do about Gay Pride, the Pink Panther, and C*YK color systems? There are suggested error messages for users of Photoshop ("Sorry, this color does not belong to you!") as well as touching eulogies for good old #FF0090 -- or 255-0-144, whichever you prefer. They date the demise of magenta as a free color to 2007.

Dibs

[Anonymous Coward]

I got dibs on plaid!!!

they complied with the letter...

[thedohman]

I especially enjoy how they complied with the letter by making the entire site's theme magenta (rather than just the mobile news blogs), and putting forth the table to describe the differences between the companies, while at the same time making it look like they are laughing at T-Mobile/DT.

Pure Genius.

...and for those who go there, but don't read everything... the current logo with the final T of engadget combined with mobile... they explain that is just for today, being April 1 and all.

Why is this News?

[ThePeices]

Trademarking a colour is not unheard of, there are plenty of companies who have trademarked a colour. E.g. Cadbury ( the chocolate maker ) has trademarked the colour purple. But note that in this case, you cannot use purple as the main packaging/advertising colour in a chocolate product, it can be used elsewhere without issues. This is just more of the same. The issue will be whether the two companies are 'selling' a similar product.

Re:Why is this News?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not news beyond the fact that the companies aren't selling "a similar product", but that the braindead "sic lawyers on everything that moves or lose it" trademark laws are still causing pain and suffering for people who are clearly not infringing on the off chance that someone will claim that because they didn't send a C&D to every single person using the color magenta, they "don't deserve" the trademark anymore.

Let's face it, the suitability of "Lego" being a trademark should not hinge on how many fucking hours of my life I waste on their stupid trademark by typing out "Lego(TM) brand plastic building blocks" when just writing "Legos" should be enough for everybody. In fact, I bet that everyone who has ever had to say or write out "Lego(TM) brand plastic building blocks" would be fully behind legislation to remove this stupid requirement, and backed up by the companies that own the trademarks and who have to shit themselves on command whenever someone writes "Legos". The only ones who'd lose out would be the lawyers.

Not too suprising...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just about the same as when Apple wanted to patent the letter "i"

Yeah well, watch out!!

[OldFish]

I just trademarked pissing in yellow. I want a fucking nickel every time someone pisses yellow. Stupid sons of bitches.

Gah

[wicka]

First off, it's a specific shade of magenta and in a specific industry; they can't just go around yelling at everyone to stop using it. A good example would be if FedEx painted all their trucks UPS brown. I don't think a single person would disagree that that is massive trademark infringement. I think T-Mobile realizes that they have almost no chance of this claim holding up in court, which is why their letter was so nice; they were basically just asking Engadget to do them a favor and stopping using their color on their mobile site. Engadget, instead of just doing it, or even saying, "you can't do anything, we're not changing it," decided to be spiteful little douchebags. Look at their site now: they've recreated the T-Mobile logo, in magenta, in their site's logo. They've gone from barely trademark infringement, to undeniable and flagrant trademark infringement. I hope they get their pants sued off, or at least the threat of, so next time they'll act like adults and not angry 12 year olds.

Re:Gah

[OldFish]

How much do you want to bet that legally, trademarking a color is analogous to copyrighting a rendered font - you can only copyright the name of the font, not the bitmap characters. So fine, I won't try to sell "Cat Yellow" or "John Deere Green" but I see a heckuva lot of yellow bulldozers out there that are not Caterpillars(started in Stockton, I think).

Re:Gah

[Zorque]

Calm down, dumbass, it's an April Fool's joke and T-Mobile were douchebags first.

Re:Gah

[wicka]

Well T-Mobile were never douchebags, they acted incredibly nicely, and it doesn't matter if it's a joke, it's still patent infringement.

Re:Gah

[Zorque]

Dude, it's a color. You can't patent a color because you can't invent colors. They won't grant patents for things like that. Besides, it's pink. Pink is a really fucking common color, and it's really shady to try and muscle people out of using it.

Re:Gah

[wicka]

Do you even have any idea what you are talking about? Did you read the article whatsoever? It's not a patent, it's a trademark on using a specific shade of a color in the mobile phone industry. Since Engadget Mobile deals primarily with that industry, T-Mobile has a very vague legal claim to ask them to stop using magenta. It probably wouldn't hold up in court, which is why they asked so nicely. I just don't think they expected Engadget to react like twelve year olds.

Re:Gah

[Zorque]

I said patent because you did and I was pointing out that you were wrong. You're wrong about everything, it was an April Fool's joke and the site is back to normal again. You're really taking the internet seriously right now.

Re:Gah

[wicka]

It's not an April Fool's Joke, it's just the fact that they sent them a letter on March 31.

Re:Gah

[Zorque]

Ok. The site turning magenta for a day was an April Fool's joke.

Re:they have a point

[Anonymous Coward]

Try President's Day (Lincoln or Washington's birthday), or maybe Veterans Day. Or you can think of every day on /. as celebrating smart people with integrity, and April Fool's being our day off :-) Bush actually has a decent sense of humor ... so perhaps one can view April Fool's as celebrating Bush's foolish qualities -- if he didn't have that, then we'd have Cheney as president. Things can always be worse.

Re:they have a point

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? Looks pretty magenta here.

Oh, you must be browsing with IE, with its built-in auto-trademark-enforcement.

My wife had a good question....

[Jason Levine]

Upon hearing this news story, my wife had a good question: Does this mean they're going to sue Crayola?

Re:they have a point

[denominateur]

the *actual* t-mobile logo...

Re:they have a point

[amRadioHed]

The page says that was a change they made after they received the letter. That version of the logo was not part of the complaint.

Re:they have a point

[amRadioHed]

How about Darwin Day?

It's official, geeks are...

[stubear]

...fucking idiots. The site says nothing about a law suit, they merely received a request from the T-Mobile legal department to stop using the color magenta in association with the Endgadget MOBILE section of their site. First of all, READ THE FUCKING ARTICLE BEFORE COMMENTING. How hard is that? Quit this knee-jerk response to something that didn't actually happen. Second, if you are going to comment, KNOW THE FUCKING TOPIC. Trademarks MUST be protected and T-Mobile has a strong brand in the cellular/mobile space built around the color magenta. Asking Endgadget to stop using the color magenta on their MOBILE section is not unreasonable as it does encroach on their trademark. If Endgadget says no (an their response seems to say this in spades) then T-Mobile will need to bring this before a court to actually decide the matter. Shocking as this may be to hear, it really doesn't matter what a bunch of geeks with no experience in the law, intellectual property, or branding and identity think on the matter either.

Re:It's official, geeks are...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, Your point is well taken... people should read the article. HOWEVER, this is where we diverge: This is a public forum that is meant for discussion. Playing semantics like that proves your ignorance / blind sense of superiority. Often it is something shown by the legal profession / politicians when they are trying to pull the wool over people's eyes - of course I'm not sure which professional background you are from. I think this is a fair-enough thing for the community to ask themselves: "Who is it that is in charge of upholding the law? What do we want to be reflected in these laws? A sense of fair play?", etc. Personally, examples of Cadbury's trademarking the colour purple for a chocolate wrapper is downright silly - what if another company wishes to sell a blackcurrant flavoured chocolate (they do exist)?! They are now limited to other colours which do not truely reflect the nature of their product just because some moron on the street can't be bothered READING the wrapper. Should all our laws come down to the lowest-common-denominator? Should we live in a nanny-state which promotes anti-competitive behaviour on the behalf of large multinationals? Certainly, I do believe in some degree of product protection, but, the line should be drawn somewhere. That somewhere should be a reflection of society's sense of fairness - NOT just YOURS! Grow up!

Re:It's official, geeks are...

[Erez.Hadad]

Agreed. Although Mr. High and Mighty (of the original post) is right about the need to actually read what the case actually is, he is certainly wrong to assume that having a trademark built around a color make the trademark's owner the owner of that color as well. Colors are simply too generic for that.
Oh.. and one last thing, since we're already into blunt preaching (and again, this addresses the original poster of this thread, not the one I'm replying to): Respect thy fellow man, asshole!

Re:It's official, geeks are...

[radish]

Except, of course, that Engadget's lawyer obviously agrees that T-Mobile don't have a leg to stand on or he wouldn't have let them put that post up. Don't forget Engadget is owned by AOL/TW - I'm sure they have plenty of IP lawyers of their own keeping an eye out for problems like this and advising on responses.

Re:It's official, geeks are...

[stubear]

"...he is certainly wrong to assume that having a trademark built around a color make the trademark's owner the owner of that color as well. Colors are simply too generic for that. "

That is for a judge and a court of law to decide, not random people on the internet.

Re:It's official, geeks are...

[stubear]

I'm all for discussion but if people aren't going to RTFA then why bother having a link to an article? Why not just have topics and people can then place their ignorant, mindless rants in those? The second you attach a story to the discussion you've put some form of context that the discussion should follow. Beyond that, if you don't understand the topic you're commenting on then how are you furthering the discussion any? I'm a graphic designer with a fair amount of experience in trademark and copyright issues. I wouldn't presume to argue the finer points of CPU design were a story to appear on Slashdot. Why then must people who clearly haven't read the basics of copyright and trademark bother to comment their uninformed, often completely wrong comments (I would say opinions but it's clear people are trying to pass their BS off as fact, i.e. if you don't protect your copyright you lose it).

As to your Cadbury example, if I were to create a chocolate bar and design my wrapper to be a dark brown with large bold letters in silvery gray across the front you can bet your ass that I'd be expecting Hershey's to be knocking on my door. I've invaded their space and promoted my product with similar colors, thus infringing on an established trademark in candy bars. If I were to crete a wireless network device and design the packaging the same way (god only knows why I'd do this, this is merely an hypothetical) then I'd be well within my rights to tell Hershey's what they could do with themselves. This is all about protecting the brand and trust surrounding successful brands as much as it is about minimizing consumer confusion.

Evil Chocolate

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't Cadbury (Australia?) sue another chocolate company for using their purple as well?

We've seen this all before... with Orange!

[SD NFN STM]

Orange mobile (cell) phones are at odds with Easyjet, who uses Orange as a corporate colour.

http://www.engadget.com/2005/02/21/orange-owns-orange/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3553640.stm

I can't remember what happened but I hope that neither side won, because Orange are stupid to try and claim ownership of a colour... and Easyjet are bastards that have sued anyone that uses the word "easy" in any domain name!

Cadbury have successfully trademarked Purple

[meowsqueak]

At least in NZ, Australia and I think the UK.

I sent them an email about it once and received a very hostile reply threatening me with 'vigorous legal action' if I tried to use purple in any confectionary context. Sheesh, I was only asking...

oblig. simpsons quote

[lijkert]

Lawyer: "Excuse me, but what are you doing?" Homer: "I'm writing a song!" Lawyer: "Go ahead, but don't use A-flat or G-natural. Those notes are owned by disney." Homer: "Awww..." Lawyer: "That's A-flat!" Homer, on the same note, but rising: "Awww..."

Staff Corporate Lawyers

[dreamchaser]

Corporate lawyers are paid a very nice salary but do not get to bill by the hour. I'm pretty sure T Mobile is big enough to employ lawyers in it's legal department.

It's not even the same color...

[Chysn]

T-Mobile magenta: e2 00 74
Engadget magenta: ec 00 8c

Not. Even. Close.

You screwed up! AHAHHA

[deft]

AHA! You just got the trademark on the "colour blue".

i got the trademark on the COLOR blue, which is good in the USA, not just across the pond!

Re:You screwed up! AHAHHA

[Oktober Sunset]

Well, soon Americans will be forced to spell it colour too, as part of the settlement that they will have to accept when they get sued for using red white and blue in their flag. We had those colours first you thieving yanks! Tho, I see legal battles with Russia, the Netherlands and France being a bit more troublesome.

Grammar Police

[Anonymous Coward]

Freaking hundreds of dollars an hour lawyers couldn't be bothered to do a grammar check and didn't capitalize the first word of the FIRST sentence.

Great April Fools Joke.... NeXT Called via Apple..

[tyrione]

Sorry, but if they want to claim Magenta, then NeXT can claim Magenta all over it's ass.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:NeXT_logo.svg

T-Mobile Ads Running Below the Article

[Benji Minoskovich]

I couldn't resist pointing out the irony of the T-Mobile ads that are running below the article. Hit refresh a few times and one will pop up. I took a screen capture but I'm too lazy to post it anywhere.

Sigh.....

[IHC Navistar]

Ok, just how dumb can companies be when they start claiming trademarks on COLORS?!

Certain companies in certain industries have traditionally had their own colors, such as:

Company: (Color Usage:)

John Deere: Green (Logo, vehicle color)
Caterpillar: Yellow (Logo, bulldozers, tractors, engines)
Ford: Blue (Logo, engines)
Waukesha: Orange (Logo, engines)
FedEx: Blue/Red (Logo, vehicle lettering)
United Parcel Servie: Brown (Logo, vehicle color)
DHL: Yellow/Red (Logo (red), vehicle color (yellow)
Waste Management: Green/Yellow (Logo (Green/Yellow), vehicle color (green)
Microsoft: Blue (Logo)
Mitsubishi: Red (Logo/lettering)

According to T-Mobile (and earlier claims by Cadbury for the color purple), since Waste Management and John Deere both have the same colors, then they must be the same thing. Apparently, these companies think wayyy too highly of themselves. Color recognition requires YEARS of using the SAME COLOR, and almost always in its entirety (covering the vast majority of the product, logo, etc.)

For some reason nowadays, companies have this conceited idea that anybody else who uses "their" colors is trying to imitate them. The thing is, the consumers that are buying their products are knowledgable enough to know the difference. If Company A was used Company B's colors, consumers would only think that Company A was trying to copy Company B, and would not be fooled. Furthermore, it would reflect badly on Company A for appearing to imitate Company B.

For example, if Ford started building tractors that were 'John Deere' green, people would think that Ford was trying to imitate a higher quality product, reflecting negatively on Ford, and John Deere would come out looking like the company that everyone was trying to be.

However, the only time colors come into importance is when they are being used specifically to make at product look indistinguishable, albeit for a few design differences. If Ford made a tractor that very closely resembled a John Deere tractor (minor design differences being things like a slightly different bucket shape, different control lever styling, longer bucket pistons, etc.) and colored it green, then people would think that Ford was trying to copy Deere, not that the tractor is made by Deere. People would not buy it because they thought it was a Deere tractor, but they would instead by a Deere tractor because they would think that Ford was trying to sell an inferior product and disguising it in Deere green.

When a company copies a characteristic of another company that is well-known and recognized by society, it reflects badly on the company doing the copying, and good on the company being copied. If you bought an imitation Rolex made by Casio, would that reflect badly on Casio? Yes, becuase consumers would think that Casio is incapable of making soething with the samel level of worksmanship as Rolex, and since, to the consumer, if Casio is trying to copy Rolex, why not buy the real thing with the quality craftsmanship practiced by Rolex?

Re:Sigh.....

[meringuoid]

Microsoft: Blue (Logo)

You misspelled 'IBM'.

Or possibly 'Screen Of Death'.

Re:Sigh.....

[dwye]

If Ford made a tractor that very closely resembled a John Deere tractor (minor design differences being things like a slightly different bucket shape, different control lever styling, longer bucket pistons, etc.) and colored it green, then people would think that Ford was trying to copy Deere, not that the tractor is made by Deere. People would not buy it because they thought it was a Deere tractor, but they would instead by a Deere tractor because they would think that Ford was trying to sell an inferior product and disguising it in Deere green.

Or they might still buy it, as a cheaper tractor at least as good as another Ford tractor, just as people DO buy fake Rolexes.

OTOH, since Ford and Deere would be in the same market, in this case, Ford would lose in court (and they know it, and therefore wouldn't bother unless attempting a hostile takeover at the same time). Of course, if Deere tried complaining about a Ford (or GM) *car* color in a Detroit court, they would be laughed out of it, because no one thinks John Deere and cars, especially in a city (assuming that they even knew that Deere *had* a color, or that Deere wasn't a misspelling).

since, to the consumer, if Casio is trying to copy Rolex, why not buy the real thing with the quality craftsmanship practiced by Rolex?

Perhaps because Rolexes, with a mechanical movement, keep relatively mediocre time, compared to the Casio (or any cheap brand) with a quartz crystal movement? Yes, your Rolex will last for decades of careful use, but is it better than having a $25 watch that looks really cool for a few years which can be replaced by another fake outside that looks even cooler (there *are* brands out there that make Rolex look cheap, remember)?

BTW, Caterpiller may call its color "yellow" but (1) it is more of an orange, and (2) it doesn't affect anyone in the phone book business, who have competing yellows, let alone school busses with an even more similar shade.

This is an April Fool's joke.

[KingSkippus]

If not by Engadget on us (in spite of their claims to be serious), then someone is pulling one over on Engadget by writing up an official-looking letter, and they bought it hook, line, and sinker, and now you folks are too, which makes it even more funny.

The first clue is that the letter starts off "we write to you..." Notice the uncapitalized w that starts the sentence. That's a grammatical error. If a lawyer really wrote that letter, you can bank on such a careless error NOT being in there, let alone the first frickin' letter of the letter.

The second clue is that the letter was "hand-delivered." Why the hell would T Mobile go through the time and expense to hand deliver a letter like this instead of just sending it registered and/or certified mail, especially as the initial salvo? Simple. Because in order to appear real, whoever is playing the joke would have had to have put German stamps on the letter, get someone to mail it from Germany, and conveniently arrive on April Fool's Day.

The third, and most compelling clue, is that you simply cannot trademark the color magenta, or any other color. If this letter were real, the lawyers would have insisted that they rework the logo to not be confusing, not that they completely stop using the color magenta. That's an absolutely ludicrous demand, as any lawyer worth his salt can tell you.

Mark my words, and mark them well. I'd bet a large sum of money on this. It's fake. And when it comes out that it's fake, I'm going to take no small delight in pointing to this post and gloating, "See? I TOLD you so!"

Heh, I can't believe people are actually taking this seriously. "Going magenta." Whoever is playing them must be tickled a delightful shade of— well, you know. ;)

Re:This is an April Fool's joke.

[Veramocor]

Wrong, try again next time.

Tiffany's has trademarked a shade of blue, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiffany_Blue

Re:This is an April Fool's joke.

[networkBoy]

Just to be fair:
you can register a trademark on a color(pantone)/font face and especially the combination of the two...
so it is plausible.
We all can assume that grammatical errors can happen.
so it is still plausible.
We all know how *reasonable* lawyers are, and to that end the elimination of the use of a color seems perfectly reasonable.
so it is still plausible.
BUT the letter was awfully nice compared to the Normal type of C&D but not as enlightened as this one.
So it is no longer plausible and I (and Occam's razor) concur. April fools.
-nB

Re:This is an April Fool's joke.

[Bwian_of_Nazareth]

The first clue is that the letter starts off "we write to you..." Notice the uncapitalized w that starts the sentence. That's a grammatical error. If a lawyer really wrote that letter, you can bank on such a careless error NOT being in there, let alone the first frickin' letter of the letter. As the first sentence starts with salutation which is then followed by a comma, in many languages the first letter of the following line is not capitalized. If this was written by a German native speaker, even a laywer, such an error is not surprising.

Re:This is an April Fool's joke.

[Saint Fnordius]

I almost agree, as the parent company lost this battle back in 2001. Apparently there are strict guidelines as to "trade dress" such as Coca Cola's red, UPS' brown, Tiffany's blue and so on.

What further complicates this is a loophole in German law which allows lawyers to file for trademark infringement – without having to get the approval of the supposedly injured party. This has led to a new breed of trademark trolls, filing injunctions and sending out cease-and-desist letters without the knowledge of their "clients". This depresses me, as part of why I left the USA was to get away from the lawsuit mentality.

So yeah, it's a joke, but the people behind it are unfortunately all too earnest.

Re:This is an April Fool's joke.

[supernova_hq]

Well, John Deer did copyright the shade of green they paint all their machinery.

Re:This is an April Fool's joke.

[Jesus_666]

The Deutsche Telekom, of which T-Online is a subsidiary, does have a so-called Farbmarke (color trademark) on magenta (to be precise, on the color RAL 4010). This is not really unusual; Heinz has a color trademark on the background color of the label on their baked beans cans.

Important is that a color trademark only works to prevent people from confusing companies or products. I could release baked beans in a RAL 4010 colored can any day, just as I could start an ISP with a turqoise website. However, having a RAL 4010 colored can of beans with a large T on it might infringe on DT's trademarks again due to being too similar to their corporate design.

By the way, US law does accept color trademarks as valid since the Lanham Act and especially since Qualitex Co. v. Jacobson Products Co., Inc.. (source)


IANAL, but I do posess the rare skill of being able to use Google effectively.

Re:This is an April Fool's joke.

[V for Vendetta]

Heh, I can't believe people are actually taking this seriously. "Going magenta." Whoever is playing them must be tickled a delightful shade of-- well, you know. ;)

(German here) Unfortunately this is really serious. They've done that a couple of years ago in Germany as well.

German Wiki entry on Magenta

German Wiki entry on Deutsche Telekom, menioning their law suits re. Magenta

Re:This is an April Fool's joke.

[torkus]

Straight from the TMO website...

"...and the color magenta are registered and/or unregistered trademarks of Deutsche Telekom AG in the US and/or other countries"

Would it hold up in court? Ask a lawyer. Do they claim to have copyright? Yes.

I won't argue anything else, but the background on this story is legit. They've had that copyright notice for quite some time.

Re:This is an April Fool's joke.

[Anonymous Coward]

Crap. Now my color printer only prints in black and white. At least my green monochrome display still works in color.

Re:This is an April Fool's joke.

[Thelasko]

Hey, if Pantone can copyright a color, what's to keep T-Mobile from trademarking one?

Microsoft got there first

[exitmoose]

Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeroes

Re:they have a point

[MadnessASAP]

Because there not very exciting and consist mainly of about 20 males trying not to make eye contact with the 2 females?

Photon gun

[MillionthMonkey]

I hope somebody tells those scientists building the new type of photon gun, because if that thing fires magenta photons T-Mobile is going to be pissed.

Nothing new

[AlgorithMan]

They have filed lawsuits in germany about that color before
they even tried to trademark the letter "T" (because it't their logo) - SERIOUSLY!

and trademarks on colors aren't new either - Nivea has a trademark on the blue-tone of their cream-tins
(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nivea )

Wrong, try again.

[KingSkippus]

Wrong, try again next time. Tiffany's has trademarked a shade of blue, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiffany_Blue

Wrong, try again. The color and the product have to be linked in some way, with the color being distinctive to the product. When you think of magenta, it's highly unlikely that the first thing that pops into your head is "T Mobile". T Mobile can't trademark the color magenta any more than IBM can trademark the color blue or UPS can trademark the color brown. In specific contexts, sure. In relation to specific logos or other marks, you bet. But not the color by itself in such generic cases.

Maybe you should try clicking one more link from the page you linked to here. "Whether a colour can serve as a trade mark depends on the visual perception of the viewer. Normally, the distinctiveness through use must be shown." I'm sorry, but until you can show me how magenta&mdashor any generic color&mdashis distinctively associated with T Mobile, you fail.

Re:Wrong, try again.

[SpinyManiac]

Actually UPS have trademarked the colour brown according to Wikipedia, Engadget and plenty of other places.

Re:Wrong, try again.

[Jesus_666]

Apart from the fact that in Germany magenta does carry "Deutsche Telekom subsidiary" as its primary connotation, T-Mobile might think that a website about mobile communication is similar enough to their business to have people confused by the color.

Also note that the Engadget Mobile logo contains a small bar made from rectangles. Small squares (DT calls them "Digits") are an important part of DT's corporate design and are commonly found in their logos. This might be another factor that has prompted T-Mobile to spring to action.

I know that Engadget's design is much different from T-Mobile's - DT tends to brefer blocky designs with sharp corners. But then again I'm in Germany and DT is still the main ISP over here (especially in rural areas), so I neccessarily deal with them occasionally. Most people in the States don't.


They might be overreacting, but I think it's not hard at all to see their case.

Re:Wrong, try again.

[jetsfandb]

It should be noted however that as the Wikipedia link suggests the specific shade of brown dubbed "UPS Brown" is trademarked specifically in the area of delivery companies and not a general trademark.

From the wikipedia link:

The brown color that UPS uses on its vehicles and uniforms is called UPS Brown. This color is often erroneously referred to as Pantone color 0607298, but this is not a valid Pantone number.[3] The color UPS Brown is trademark, which prevents other delivery companies from using it as part of their brand.

Re:Wrong, try again.

[SpinyManiac]

True, but I couldn't be bothered to type that. It doesn't change the essential fact that they've tradmarked a colour, just a more specific one.

Are UPS the company of choice for shipping Zunes? ;)

Re:Wrong, try again.

[sl4x74]

I also believe that the idea "The color UPS Brown is trademark, which prevents other delivery companies from using it" is important. For example, if you are a school and choose to use the UPS Brown as one of your colors, it probably wouldn't be infringement.

Re:Wrong, try again.

[jetsfandb]

Are UPS the company of choice for shipping Zunes? ;)

Of course not! Who buys Zunes! :D

Re:Wrong, try again.

[Sandbags]

UPS trademarked brown for use in relation to delivery services only. Besides, when a brown truck pulls up, you know who's it is. When someone says we're shipping brown, you know how it's coming. Brown is clearly associated with UPS's legacy.

besides... April fools.

Re:Wrong, try again.

[Tingler]

Well... There is one school that may have an issue with using that color...

http://www.ups.edu/

Brand identity.

[MaWeiTao]

In my experience with branding colors always are part of a larger set which includes, the logo itself, font, visual style and sometimes even photography. The entire package is normally trademarked.

Companies can lay claim to particular colors but given that they inevitably are choosing from a finite set, and almost always from Pantone they're going to have a hard time laying claim to any particular color. It's almost always the combination of color and logo which matters most. Most companies probably wont get far trying to protect their color for a simple reason: the average person doesn't associate a particular color with that given brand. In other cases, however, color is a very integral part of the identity. For example, Ferrari is red, Fedex is purple and orange (although they've been diluting that combination a bit), UPS is brown and T-Mobile is magenta. These colors have a strong association with those brands.

So color is important, but it isn't everything. Obviously anyone can use any color; it isn't like copying a logo which takes actual work and intent. Of the company's I've listed FedEx would probably have the best case simply because it's the color combination that is unique. However, even then I don't see much of a case. If Engadget were using that magenta, in conjunction with T-Mobile's typeface and layout, the combination of the greys and the san serif font, then T-Mobile would likely have an actual case. They would have a case even without Engadget actually using T-Mobile's logo style because their brand identity is distinctive enough.

From what I see now I have a hard time believing T-Mobile has anything to dispute. But then I haven't really visited Engadget much to know what has prompted that letter.

Re:It's lawyers adding up hours / protecting the T

[mpe]

The letter is a combination of the TMobile trademark lawyers doing what lawyers do...billing hours. Plus, they are protecting the TMoblie trademark. With Trademark law you must prove that you have diligently protect your TM by notifying parties of infringement. In every suspected case. With Endgadget there is no confusion or dilution of the TM. But, if someday TMobile has to defend their TM in court against another mobile provider who might use the color..they can haul out the big box of all the letters they sent to everyone who used Magenta and prove they diligently protected their TM

Who are they going to go after next, anyone who makes magenta toner? Maybe such a bogus accusations should count against them as much as wilfully ignoring an actual infringer.

T-Mobile says: PONIES!

[arotenbe]

Quick, everyone! Download Slashdotter so that we can at least fake that we had a pink April Fools joke this year!

Oh, wait...

as Gogol Bordello says...

[Anonymous Coward]

Start wearing purple baby!

Not the best colour out there

[nigels]

Hey T-Mobile, so sue me: http://www.nigels.com/

Actually, I don't think I can put up with this colour for too long...

Re:they have a point

[nbert]

If you think it's currently a bad combination of colors you might want to look at this picture of a 90's phone booth in Germany (the one on the right). Back in the 90's everything they produced was magenta and grey. A very bad choice from an aesthetic point of view - on the other hand it really stands out, which seems to be very desirable for a company. Since magenta is their core color they can't simply change it, but at least they replaced grey with white and don't cover huge areas with pink anymore.

Free magenta

[mutende]

This site's been up for quite some time in response to t-mobile's claim: Free Magenta.

My eyes!

[Jafar00]

My eyes hurt now after all that Magenta madness! Damn you T-mobile :p

Small correction

[Jesus_666]

T-Mobile, not T-Online. Both are subsidiaries of DT, but it's the Mobile one we're talking about, of course.

Re:they have a point

[KDR_11k]

Don't you mean "tell them to go fornicate themselves"?

s/New/Nest/

[Jesus_666]

-nt-

Re:they have a point

[Anonymous Coward]

did i just get rickrolled?

thanks god SUN(R) does not think like that

[octogen]

...otherwise it'd be rather dark here all the time...

Re:they have a point

[OhHellWithIt]

I don't see where T-mobile has a leg to stand on. I can see a difference between Engadget's magenta and T-mobile's magenta, and I'm mildly color-blind.

Re:they have a point

[conlaw]

Thanks, nbert, I agree that the T-Mobile phone booth is bad, particularly in contrast with the more subtle colors of the SwissCom next to it. However, as to not "covering huge areas with pink anymore," this http://www.t-mobile.com/ should link you to the current US T-Mobile site.

One good turn....

[3vi1]

I thought T-Mobile was Mr. T's van.

Engadget should let Mr. T know, so that he can sue T-Mobile for infringing his trademark.

-J

Re:they have a point

[PopeRatzo]

So how many voted for him. Are they all also fool?

You betcha.

Prior Art

[Mechanik]

I own the trademarks for the colours red(TM), green(TM), and blue(TM). All other colours/colors are hereby decreed to be derivative works of my important trademark. You must all cease and desist from all usage of these colors/colours, including the emission, reflection, or refraction of any photons in the visible spectrum from any object or surface whatsoever. Pure black is OK as it is technically not a colour and contains neither red, nor green, nor blue. However, grey/gray are infringing colours/colors as these contain white, which is a combination of red(TM), green(TM), and blue(TM).

#e70073 FTW

[Russ Nelson]

#e70073 FTW

Re:It's lawyers adding up hours / protecting the T

[xZgf6xHx2uhoAj9D]

No, that's not how trademark works. A trademark exists only within an industry (a "trade", if you will). E.g., I could start up a fast-food restaurant called Microsoft or a software company called McDonald's and both would be perfectly fine. Microsoft's trademarks exist only within the software industry, and McDonald's exist only in the food industry. T-Mobile is going after engadget because the two of them are in the same industry and hence are fighting over the same trademarks.

Re:It's lawyers adding up hours / protecting the T

[mpe]

T-Mobile is going after engadget because the two of them are in the same industry and hence are fighting over the same trademarks.

How are they in the same industry? Engaget isn't providing any kind of telephone service. The former is "telecoms", the latter is "news and reviews".

Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about his/her post is assholey? The post was modded informative, probably because it was.

Preview, dipshit —

[Anonymous Coward]

— and don't forget your semicolons.