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General Mills Loses Bid To Trademark Yellow Color On Cheerios Box (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: U.S. intellectual property regulators are rejecting General Mills' bid to trademark the yellow background color on boxes of Cheerios cereal. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board on Tuesday set aside the cereal maker's two-year quest to trademark "the color yellow appearing as the predominant uniform background color" on boxes of "oat-based breakfast cereal." A contrary ruling could have given the Cheerios maker an exclusive right to yellow boxes of oat cereal. General Mills argued that it deserved to be awarded the trademark status because "consumers have come to identify the color yellow" on boxes of oats cereal with "the Cheerios brand." It has been marketed in yellow packaging since 1945, with billions in sales. The board noted that "there is no doubt that a single color applied to a product or its packaging may function as a trademark and be entitled to registration under the Trademark Act." But that's only if those colors have become "inherently distinctive" in the eyes of consumers. Some of those examples include UPS "Brown;" T-Mobile "Magenta;" Target "Red;" John Deere "Green & Yellow;" and Home Depot "Orange." It goes without saying that anybody can still use those colors predominately in their marketing, but not direct competitors.
Regarding the box of Cheerios, however, the court ruled that consumers don't necessarily associate the yellow box of cereal with Cheerios, despite General Mills' assertion to the contrary. Consumers are confronted with a multitude of yellow boxes of oats cereal, the appeal board noted. By comparison, T-Mobile has only a handful of competitors, and none of them uses the magenta color as a distinctive mark, the appeal board said.
Regarding the box of Cheerios, however, the court ruled that consumers don't necessarily associate the yellow box of cereal with Cheerios, despite General Mills' assertion to the contrary. Consumers are confronted with a multitude of yellow boxes of oats cereal, the appeal board noted. By comparison, T-Mobile has only a handful of competitors, and none of them uses the magenta color as a distinctive mark, the appeal board said.
The lawyer who got paid for the last two years was a fucking genius though.
When 'Liking' a Brand Online Voids the Right to Sue — 16 April 2014
It's not the first time we've been taxed unreasonably for touching a toe to the yellow brick road, Dorothy.
General Mills Kansas City flour plant likely behind E. coli outbreak — 1 June 2016
Though for our own safety, we really have to stop meeting like this.
So I assume they'd have to describe it by the hex code or 3x 8-bit integer RGB code (same thing) so just change 231 to 230 on red for example and tada, now it's not their color. Like it's legally proveably not their color
Just like naming my search engine googIe is allowed, because mine is g-o-o-g-capital "I" - e.
Right? right? It's provably different so it's fine right?
They were idiots for even trying.
Lots of companies have trademarked colors related to their brand or product. Examples were given in TFA: UPS brown, target red, john deer green+yellow; etc.
Who's the idiot here?
Not sure you guys have this in the U.S.A. but up here we have this brand called "NO NAME" and all their packages are yellow.
#DeleteFacebook
Anyone who thinks a company should be allowed to trademark a particular wavelength of light
Why? When you see a green and yellow tractor in a field; you know its john deere. It's now protected so that another vendor can't use the same green and yellow hues on their lawn and farm equipment ... because that WOULD confuse consumers; which is precisely the point of trademark law.
This really offends you? Because??
They don't own the colors. They own the use of the colors in conjunction with a very limited purpose. You want to make green and yellow guitar and sell it... go nuts. You want to paint your tractor green and yellow after you buy it... go nuts it's your tractor. You want to go into business and sell lawn mowers painted a very particular shade of green and yellow and sell them... because what? You aren't trying to confuse people into thinking they are john deere? Really?
It's on par with trademarks on genes found nature.
The trouble with genes in particular; natural or even not, is that they exist to be spread and copied by biological processes, and they further arise from random mutation. "Owning" intellectual property on something that literally exists to be copied and spread and which can also spontaneously spring into existence where it wasn't before should clearly be a setup for all kinds of inevitable ridiculousness.
Trademarking yellow is obviously bull. But the actual suit was:
1) that yellow when combined with
2) breakfast cereal
3) oat based
4) torus shaped
I hate IP as much as the next self entitled youtube downloader, but 1-4 seems fair.
I think people would be more shocked to find out that Lucky Charms is the same recipe as Cheerios with marshmallow-like lumps of sugar included.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
All I know about Cheerios is that they're a healthy part of this complete breakfast.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I ran a little audio production outfit once upon a time called Avi Gobbler Productions. One day I got an email from a guy in Holland who sold "Gobbler Anti-Virus" and demanded I stop using the word "Gobbler" in my company name, as it infringed his trademark.
When I wrote back pointing out that my trademark predated his by a number of years, I never heard from him again. But he didn't have a case in any event.
And they are donut seeds.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
BP's trademarked green and gold is a better example, doesn't matter where you are in the world if you see a green and gold petrol (gas) station you know it's BP. The problem with the cheerios claim is there are already heaps of direct competitors using a yellow box, which makes me think they were trying to create problems for competitors more than they were trying to protect their brand. Theoretically they could have trademarked it back in 1945 (if they were first) but since they didn't and have left it for over half a century before deciding to claim it, they miss out.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Enforcing trademarks is a civil matter and it's up to the trademark owner to police their own trademarks, failing to do so may result in the loss of said trademark.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I once worked for a small company that built custom crates and rigged out heavy equipment for overseas shipment. This is back in the 70s. We got a commission to build a few hundred boxes to transport electronic equipment. This was for a local facility of Westinghouse Corp. The specs were very detailed for these -- marine grade plywood, certain types of nails, certain fittings, and there were a variety of dimension and such. Upon completion, and before delivery they were all to be spray painted with 'Westinghouse Blue'. I don't know if it was trademarked (I'm guessing it was) but it was an 'official' color. We literally went to our paint guy and there was a published formula for 'Westinghouse Blue'. If you've ever seen a package of Westinghouse light bulbs they used this blue...it's a deep blue with an almost lavender component. Anyway, this kind of thing has been going on forever....