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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."
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.
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.
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.
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.