03.17If you’re going to trademark a color …
… should it really be magenta? Thanks to Philip for tipping me off to the fact that Deutsche Telekom has evidently claimed trademark rights to the color magenta, and is, in fact, attempting to force a Dutch firm called Compello to change its corporate logo due to the color infringement.
And in a sign that the U.S. courts and patent system are far from the worst there is, it appears that the Netherlands is home to all kinds of trademark-friendly behavior. It’s cheaper and easier to fight trademark battles there, evidently, leading to the Deutsche Telekom magenta situation as well as a long-running battle between Adidas and several companies who foolishly thought it was ok to use two stripes in their designs. I wish I were joking. This article says that, “H&M simply stopped making sportswear with two stripes for their markets because of the difficulty of creating clothing lines that are legal for particular companies.” Colors and stripes. For real. Talk about redefining the notion of ownership.
P.S. Commenter Micah created the del.icio.us tag “cultureofownership” to apply to stories that might be good for this blog. I say, go for it, and do yourselves one better if you like and tag them for:m5olly! And thanks!
8 Responses to “If you’re going to trademark a color …”
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I find myself decidedly of two minds on this one.
On the one hand allowing a trademark for such apparently obvious things as shades and stripes seems STOOPID. With a capital OO.
On the other hand companies spend a LOT of money on branding efforts because it works. Sometimes all it takes is seeing a particular shape (I’m thinking of the four stripes on some Simple shoes) or colour/hue and you are immediately put in mind of a particular brand. Just think of that stunt by Improv Everywhere pulled just by wearing polo shirts just the right shade of blue in a BestBuy store.
Since it *is* so effective I am not at all surprised to see companies make these efforts to trademark shapes and colours. There is a real threat of knock-offs using your branding efforts to sell cheaper goods.
March 17th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
While I understand Micah’s point, and agree with it to some extent, trademarking a color is just ridiculous. The Nike Swoosh is one thing. The color magenta is a totally different animal. Did they INVENT the color magenta, or just tie it to their corporate image. What happened at best buy has to do with “brand equity.”
For a simple demonstration of brand equity, think of ketchup. Any American will immediately think Heinz. That’s because of brand equity. Heinz didn’t have to trademark ketchup, or red, or anything similar. They just created a superior product and their name was forevermore associated with that product.
Companies that need to enforce silly trademarks do so because they like the ability to create brand equity because they a) lack a good product and b) lack the ability to innovate.
Just my 2 cents (which is what, like .013 Euros)
March 17th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Ack, because they *lack* the ability to create brand equity.
This has been my month for typos. Geez.
March 17th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Ugh, this leaves such a bad taste in my mouth. Should Apple trademark white? Should the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles trademark green?
The Adidas story seems a bit more sensible if they are combatting companies using stripes in a similiar logo design. Hopefully they’re not just attacking anyone with stripes in any random matter!
March 20th, 2008 at 4:22 am
Ah, yes. This is why every smaller chocolate manufacturer in Australia is now terrified to use the colour purple on any packaging.
March 20th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Where it is fair and reasonable, this makes sense. The way the article explains it, it’s not fair or reasonable.
If I have a logo of a particular color and I’ve built a brand around it, I would not want a competing brand to have a similar logo, down to the color. That would confuse the brands and diminish the value of mine. THAT makes sense. If the other logo and brand was different and in a totally different market, where is the harm?
Neither of these two companies are in any way confusing the consumers by using the same color in their logo.
March 24th, 2008 at 5:02 am
Hold on a tick, this is waaaaaaay over the top. Trademarking a color? WTF – what’s our World coming to?
I’m pretty sure that color is a universal right that everyone on the planet should have. That’s right up their with the genome.
So this leads me to believe that our global economies one day are going to come a screaming halt. Not for a while, but if this trend continues no new business will be done for fear of legal restrictions and law suits.
Yikes!
March 27th, 2008 at 4:16 am
[...] gold.” Only a week or so after I became aware that Deutsche Telekom had not only trademarked the color magenta, but was also actively bigfooting companies that had the temerity to put magenta in their logos, DT [...]
March 31st, 2008 at 12:56 pm