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

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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[Anonymous Coward]

Noone is suing anyone.

Peter Noone is suing anyone?

That seems a bit excessive.

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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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.

Slashdot Participation?

[Kelson]

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

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

[FredFredrickson]

Could this be a publicity stunt for T-Mobile?

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.

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/

So what does this mean

[Jodaxia]

for Hello Kitty?

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.

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

[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.

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.

It's so obvious!

[SSNTails]

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:ROFL

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

I'm gonna trade mark the Sky.

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

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.

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..."

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: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

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.

[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: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.