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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."
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.
Caterpillar has Cat Yellow
John Deere has John Deere Green
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.
If you weren't a noble, could you even afford a purple cloak? Today's purple dyes are cheap because they are synthetic.
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.
Qualitex Co. v. Jacobson Products Co., Inc. is a 1991 Supreme Court case that said you can trademark a single color in certain circumstances.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
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/
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.
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.
That's precisely why it was considered a royal color.
rj
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.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
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.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
This isn't humor -- the story came out yesterday, March 31st.
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
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!
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...
Wrong, try again next time.
Tiffany's has trademarked a shade of blue, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiffany_Blue
Veramocor
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.