T mobile sues company for using the color magenta

[spartaman64]

Quote

Deutsche Telekom is perhaps best known around the world as the telco behind mobile carrier T-Mobile, but today it’s making an appearance in a lesser-known yet also regular role: trademark troll.

Quote

The company’s German lawyers have sent a letter to Lemonade, the AI-based insurance startup headquartered in New York, demanding it cease using magenta — a color that appears across Lemonade’s logo and marketing material — globally. DT also filed for and received an injunction on Lemonade operating in Germany — a block Lemonade has temporarily worked around by dropping magenta for the moment in the country (it’s using red instead).

Quote

But that is not the whole story: Lemonade, which said the letter came in the wake of its launch in Germany this summer, said that it will put up a fight. Today, it filed a motion with EUIPO (the European intellectual property office) to invalidate DT’s claim to a trademark on magenta; and it has further petitioned the German trademark office to remove DT’s claim to holding a right on magenta in the insurance sector.

“We thought this seemed like a massive over-reach,” Daniel Schreiber, Lemonade’s CEO and co-founder, said in an interview. “Then when we started digging, we found that they’ve been doing this across a number of countries, covering big companies to the smallest businesses. It’s mind boggling. We are in insurance.”

This fact does not matter to DT, which says the color mark is associated with its brand “beyond the classic industry environment.”

Quote

“Deutsche Telekom has asked the insurance company Lemonade to stop using the color magenta,” a spokesperson said in response to our request for comment. “Like the company logo ‘T’ and other brand elements, the color magenta is registered as a Deutsche Telekom brand. Deutsche Telekom’s brands make a significant contribution to the company’s success. Deutsche Telekom is clearly recognized and remembered by the color magenta — beyond the classic industry environment. Deutsche Telekom respects everyone’s trademark rights, but expects others to do the same. In Germany, the competent court issued an injunction against Lemonade because it considered the use of magenta to be a violation of Deutsche Telekom’s color mark. Please understand that Deutsche Telekom will not comment further on this case until a final decision has been made.”

 

https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/04/lemonade-gets-a-nastygram-from-deutsche-telekom-over-its-use-of-magenta-says-it-will-fight/

 

This Is absurd imo you can't own a color and make it so no other company can use it especially since the company they are suing isn't in the same market as them. If every company trademarked a color pretty soon there would be no colors left and then what. What if a company trademarks the color black and sues t mobile is t mobile prepared to make all letters in their marketing material magenta?

[TVwazhere]

This is good publicity for Lemonade, since people will now have heard their name, and I doubt this lawsuit will hold up.

[Polyvalent]

Can you imagine being on the legal team that's behind this nonsense?  Imagine coming home to your partner and telling them about what's going on at work.

 

"Anything interesting going on at work dear?"

"Oh nothing much, just suing another company for using magenta"

[mr moose]

Now this is (in my opinion) a text book case of patent/trademarking system failures.

 

 

[TheGlenlivet]

I'm suing Linus because I also own a pair of Socks and a pair of Sandles.

 

Come at me bro.

 

[Tech_Dreamer]

They'd probably go after Tesla next to stop the from using the letter "T" as a company logo.

[PCGuy_5960]

Brb. Going to copyright transparent and make hella money off of people with windows. 

[Trik'Stari]

I'm fairly certain you cannot hold trademarks, patents, or copyrights on things like color unless it's a color you "invented".

 

That seems to fly in the face of the idea that you cannot copyright facts (Example: You cannot copyright, patent, or trademark 2+2=4). I'm pretty sure "this wavelength of light results in this color" would qualify as a fact.

 

However, you can copyright a process to create a specific color or shade, such as vantablack. Which apparently is a big deal in the art world, which was countered by another artist who created another pigment that is as close as is physically possible to vantablack, and sold at a ridiculous discount, provided anyone who buys it never sells, shares, or otherwise gives it to the guy who owns vantablack because the entire art industry seems to hold that guy as a complete f**king a*****e for charging insane prices for vantablack.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/shortcuts/2019/aug/05/black-30-anish-kapoor-and-the-art-worlds-pettiest-funniest-dispute

A more thorough (and amusing) source: https://www.boredpanda.com/anish-kapoor-stuart-semple-feud-the-bean-sculpture-cloud-gate/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

 

So unless they're claiming that they use a specific process to create a specific magenta, and are claiming that this startup is using that entirely proprietary process, this entire case should fall apart in about 10 minutes once it gets in front of a judge. I just hope the startup sues for legal fees for this kind of bullshit.

 

 

At least, if there is still any sanity in our collective court systems. Which I doubt.

 

Edit: The artist who created a different black from Vantablack, also created the pinkest pink, and also barred Anish Kapoor from purchasing it.

[Murasaki]

[Trik'Stari]

3 minutes ago, TheGlenlivet said:

I'm suing Linus because I also own a pair of Socks and a pair of Sandles.

 

Come at me bro.

 

Shots fired @LinusTech

 

Gives me an idea for an event for LTX. A socks and sandals Olympics. A trial of strength, stamina, and nerdiness. The only requirement? The contestants be wearing socks and sandals, and @LinusTech must compete in all events.

[Polyvalent]

3 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

Shots fired @LinusTech

 

Gives me an idea for an event for LTX. A socks and sandals Olympics. A trial of strength, stamina, and nerdiness. The only requirement? The contestants be wearing socks and sandals, and @LinusTech must compete in all events.

 

You dare challenge the grandmaster of socks & sandals?  That shit will be like the Ip Man 2 scene where he beats everyone on the table.

[Bombastinator]

I’ve been waiting for someone to try this one for years.  Anyone remember “ibm blue”?  It was a 90’s thing.

[mr moose]

Just now, Bombastinator said:

I’ve been waiting for someone to try this one for years.  Anyone remember “ibm blue”?  It was a 90’s thing.

I see your avatar is a similar magenta to one I use elswhere, I'll have to sue you and LTT for using it.

[Bombastinator]

4 minutes ago, Polyvalent said:

 

You dare challenge the grandmaster of socks & sandals?  That shit will be like the Ip Man 2 scene where he beats everyone on the table.

Grandmaster? Bierkenstock came out in the 1930’s and one of its selling points was socks and sandals.

[Polyvalent]

Just now, Bombastinator said:

Grandmaster? Bierkenstock came out in the 1930’s and one of its selling points was socks and sandals.

Nice try heretic.  I recognize the true master.  

[Trik'Stari]

7 minutes ago, Polyvalent said:

 

You dare challenge the grandmaster of socks & sandals?  That shit will be like the Ip Man 2 scene where he beats everyone on the table.

I would pay almost any amount of money to see that fight, with everyone trying to defeat @LinusTech, all in socks and sandals, all balancing on wobbly tables.

 

No one with formal fighting training allowed. Just knock Linus off the table, without falling off yourself. I'm not challenging him myself. He can ride a skateboard so automatically has better balance than me.

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

I see your avatar is a similar magenta to one I use elswhere, I'll have to sue you and LTT for using it.

I refer you to the IBM lawsuit.  You’re hosed.  You have to commission the Pantone color and you only get one.  And even then you’re still hosed.

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, Polyvalent said:

Nice try heretic.  I recognize the true master.  

You mean my oma from bad piermont who actually wore them since the 1930’s with big fluffy handmade wool socks?  She was crazy as a bat but she could draw beautifully. Student of Katre Kolowitz.

 

occurs to me she’s the wrong gender.  Pre and post war East German quakers.  All the men were dead.  The ones the nazis didn’t get the soviets did.

[Bombastinator]

Occurs to me part of the problem that company is going to run into is that color is process magenta.  They picked it because it’s cheap.  It’s in literally every four color printing ever done before octachrome came out.  There’s so much prior art it’s staggering.  Heck they’re going to have to go after every comic book done before the 90’s

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

I refer you to the IBM lawsuit.  You’re hosed.  You have to commission the Pantone color and you only get one.  And even then you’re still hosed.

I refer you to my lawyer.  All further correspondence must got through him. Any further direct contact will be considered digital stalking and harassment in order to extort.  It will be met with further legal persuits seeking satisfaction.

 

If I throw enough suits at you something has got to stick.

 

 

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

I refer you to my lawyer.  All further correspondence must got through him. Any further direct contact will be considered digital stalking and harassment in order to extort.  It will be met with further legal persuits seeking satisfaction.

 

If I throw enough suits at you something has got to stick.

 

 

Oh I feel so slapped!

[Tristerin]

9 minutes ago, mr moose said:

If I throw enough suits at you something has got to stick.

'Murica

 

lol

[mr moose]

8 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Oh I feel so slapped!

Imagine how the small guy who is innocent feels when a big company does this to them?  I have been on the receiving end of some horrible legal shit (small time compared to what some go through), and that was bad enough without having to hire a lawyer to defend a bullyboy.

[RejZoR]

Bitches, I'm gonna trademark RGB color range. Which means everyone making RGB gadgetry will have to pay me dosh. I'll be loaded as fuck.

[yolosnail]

If UPS can own brown, T-Mobile should be able to own pink