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This ownership of color is just ridiculous. By that logic, Google is literally using the Fuchsia color #FF00FF for Fuchsia OS which is literally classed a Magenta as the web color! T-Mobile, I dare you to sue Google.
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You sound surprised that it is possible to trademark a color. This has been part of intellectual property law for quite some time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_trade_mark I'm not saying I agree that colors should be trademarked, just that it's fairly common practice.
The problem is it's too broad a claim. Trademarking a color is limited to (1) a specific competitive space, and (2) when it is a distinctive identifier of your brand (e.g., DeWalt's yellow and black scheme in the power tools business). T-Mobile is in the telecom business, and Lemonade is in the residential insurance business. T-Mobile should not be trying to take-down a company that is not in their competitive space…
This reminds me of a similar case between SparkFun and Fluke from 2014 where Fluke demanded that SparkFun stop selling their own multimeters which had the same colors as the Fluke brand multimeters. https://www.sparkfun.com/news/1428
They're not even using the same pink! So this isn't just a usual "trademarks just work this way" thing, it's also a question of how much of the colorspace a trademark can own. The techcrunch article is a bit more informative -- https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/04/lemonade-gets-a-nastygram-...
I'm going to trademark the color blue. Now every silicon valley startup is infringing.
In this case, I don't think a typical consumer would see brand confusion, which is really the benchmark for trademark enforcement usually.
[1] https://www.colormatters.com/color-and-marketing/color-brand...
For some background, the reason these laws exist is to protect consumers from counterfeiters. If someone produces jewelry in a clean baby blue box, customers will start to expect that same level of quality, etc. They will be ripped off if someone else uses the same packaging but a low quality product. However many things have to be considered from the consumers perspective. Is there likely confusion? Is one of the ma…
Yeah I don't understand their reasoning here. If some cell service company started using the colors of verizon/sprint/T-mobile I could see that as confusing and potentially misleading. But outside of their market, they should have no say on who uses that color.
To add even more color to the kerfuffle, Lemonade filed a motion yesterday with the European intellectual property office to loosen Deutsche’s legal vice-grip on the color, and has petitioned to remove DT’s color-rights on magenta in the insurance sector.
The problem is, T-Mobile actually does offer insurance on services like cybersecurity and tech-gadget protection policies, which could add a touch of gray to the magenta dispute.Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, there is a thing called colormark, But as far as I know, color marks apply to companies from the same industry. T-Mobile and Lemonade are not in the same industry therefore, Lemonade should be able to use Magenta.
They both sell insurance, so one could argue they are in the same industry. Unless we're going to sub-divide insurance between Home/Car and Phone.
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Color is an interesting thing, however. Because there are only so many colors to go around. Imagine if companies could reserve an entire letter. All words beginning with that letter would belong to them.
You mean like Apple did with the lowercase "I"?
https://www.smh.com.au/technology/apples-future-wont-be-brou...
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pretty close? Where's the line then?
The line is where a judge or jury decides it is.
The laws are made by the lawmakers (congress, parliaments, etc.)
Justice is there as the supreme/ultimate power to resolve issues between parties. We can't go around smashing heads because "my colour/your colour". When two parties have an issue that cannot be resolved amicably (I don't mean crimes), then Justice gets to say the final word. We live in a civilized world.
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Is this really what companies worry about? An insurance (edit: ha, I thought it was a beverage company until I read another comment) company is using a similar colour as our telecommunications company so let's get lawyers involved?
Yes, they do. Lots of companies trademark their brand colors. UPS has a particular shade of brown. There are others, including 3M, Barbie pink, the yellow of a Wiffle Ball bat, and Cadbury purple.