T mobile sues company for using the color magenta

[Bombastinator]

19 minutes ago, yolosnail said:

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

They picked a custom Pantone color.  They don’t own “brown” they own a very particular shade of brown with a very particular trademark purpose.

tmobile picked process magenta.  For phone service.  Bad move both ways.

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

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.

You may enjoy a recent episode of “last week tonight” then where they celebrate beating a slapp suit from some disgraced hereditary coal baron.

[TetraSky]

... Surely you can't truly trademark a god damn color on everything, even on stuff that literally has nothing to do with your business... What kind of monkey court would rule in their favor.

[Roswell]

It's worth noting that this has nothing to do with T-Mobile US. While Deutsche Telekom owns a controlling share, they're not the same company.

[Spotty]

3 hours ago, Trik'Stari said:

I'm fairly certain you cannot hold trademarks, patents, or copyrights on things like color unless it's a color you "invented".
[...]
However, you can copyright a process to create a specific color or shade, such as vantablack.

Trademark, patent, and copyright are different things.

Patent would cover the designs or process for manufacturing the pigment or paint. (Vantablack is patented)

Copyright would cover the works of art created using the colour (your example of the artist who has exclusive rights to using Vantablack - their works of art created using Vantablack would be covered by copyright)

Trademark would cover words, logos, symbols, fonts and designs (including colours) that are used to distinguish your brand from the competition. Using Vantablack again as the example, the word Vantablack is trademarked. (They can't trademark the colour Vantablack since the logo on the packaging is printed with regular black ink not Vantablack)

 

You can trademark colours that are part of your branding. Successfully defending it can be an entirely different story... For example Cadbury famously had copyrighted the use of a particular purple colour in the use of candy bars, however when they tried to expand the trademark to other food products they were challenged by competitors and they ultimately lost their trademark on the colour.  https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47113644

 

Without looking too far in to it (I'd trust TechCrunch on reporting a legal issue as much as I'd trust The Verge to build my PC), I would say that much like the Cadbury case it could be found that Deutsche Telekom's trademark on the colour is too broad and far reaching and they could potentially lose it.

 

 

4 hours ago, Trik'Stari said:

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

Apparently Kapoor ended up getting his hands on it anyway.

Spoiler

A quick video on the pinkest pink if you're interested

 

[Founders]

[The1Dickens]

2 hours ago, yolosnail said:

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

They can only use brown on trucks and uniforms, apparently. (pdf)

 

Apparently, DT has some grounds for a suit. Though, it may prove to be difficult, since they'd have to prove that magenta, in the industry Lemonade operates, is synonymous with DT. But there is a list of trademarked colors, including Tiffany Blue, Qualitex Green-Gold, UPS Brown, Barbie Pink, Cadbury Purple, Whiffle Ball Bat Yellow, Owens-Corning Pink (household insulation), and 3M Canary Yellow, and finally, T-Mobile's Magenta.

 

Though, those other colors they "can't" use is absolutely silly. Personally, when I think of the color magenta, I don't think of T-Mobile. In fact, I would have thought it was pink. And the first things I think of when I think of pink are Pepto-Bismol, LG, Esurance, Victoria's Secret, etc. If you asked me to name 5 telecom companies/services, T-Mobile wouldn't even be on that list for me. Verizon, Sprint, Google, Singular, and Boost come to the top of my head, first.

 

List of colors from an article ran in 2017, which is a reprint of an article from 2011. Note that it does point out:

Quote

"Roy G. Biv better watch himself. From red to violet, it's completely legal for companies to stake a claim on any shade they want (provided they meet certain conditions), including the nine colors below. But don't throw out your adult coloring books just yet—trademarks are typically confined to certain industries or areas of expertise. For example, while you would certainly get a cease-and-desist letter for marketing your jewelry store with Tiffany Blue, you'd be perfectly within your rights to theme your bagel shop in the distinctive tone. (Just don't call it Breakfast at Tiffany's.)"

 

[The1Dickens]

21 minutes ago, Spotty said:

You can trademark colours that are part of your branding. Successfully defending it can be an entirely different story... For example Cadbury famously had copyrighted the use of a particular purple colour in the use of candy bars, however when they tried to expand the trademark to other food products they were challenged by competitors and they ultimately lost their trademark on the colour.  https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47113644

It seems they lost the case due to the wording of their trademark, which states "All visible surfaces, or predominate surface area", which the courts ruled counts as 'multiple marks' and thus invalidates the trademark.  That's a bummer, though.

 

This also supersedes the list of colors I posted previously, as it's from Nov. 21, 2018.

[Napper198]

5 hours ago, spartaman64 said:

 

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?

And you guys thought Comcast is evil

Sounds about something DT would do and provides further proof to my hypothesis that every ISP needs to be evil. 
 

I’m fairly certain that they won’t be able to pull it off. I.e. how did BMW get away with naming their electric car i3 while Intel had that name on their processor for years?

 

as @Trik'Stari mentioned it is possible to trademark a specific colour pigment and it is also possible to trademark a specific colour shade in your business area i.e. Kawasaki green in transportation, but that doesn’t stop you from selling green cars, just be some shades off and don’t use that specific colour pigment. 

[amdorintel]

4 minutes ago, Napper198 said:

how did BMW get away with naming their electric car i3 while Intel had that name on their processor for years?

totally different industries

is i3 itself trademarked ?

maybe they were sued

[mr moose]

14 minutes ago, amdorintel said:

totally different industries

is i3 itself trademarked ?

maybe they were sued

I don't think the i identifier for tech of any nature is trademarked because it has been used for so long and the original company that made the iPhone in Brazil only had a patent for Brazil.   Hyundai has the i30 the i40 and the iload, while apple has the iphone and intel has the i series CPU's. There are too many existing products to be able to claim ownership beyond being the first o trademark iphone and ipad in a few countries. (although apple still tried to get the iphone and ipad trade marks from companies that were already using them through suing them of course )

[ARikozuM]

This is what happens when you need to have frivolous lawsuits to make up your quarterly profits instead of spending money on infrastructure. 

[Bombastinator]

Part of it I think is one of the requirements of trademark is that you have to defend it with a certain amount of effort or you can lose it.  Bayer lost its trademark on the word “aspirin” for instance.  There’s a reason jello ads always refer to it as “jello brand gelatin”

 

they may not be expecting to win.

[SenKa]

16 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Part of it I think is one of the requirements of trademark is that you have to defend it with a certain amount of effort or you can lose it.  Bayer lost its trademark on the word “aspirin” for instance.  There’s a reason jello ads always refer to it as “jello brand gelatin”

 

they may not be expecting to win.

There is a legal concept for trademarked goods that goes along with this. To very crudely summarize it, there becomes a point where a company can actually effectively lose their trademark to a product because their name is no longer synonymous with it and thusly cannot win an infringement suit. Thats why you buy "Jello Brand Gelatin" rather than "Jello". Yes, other companies can sell you Gelatin, but they can't sell you Jello.

 

Bayer failed to do this, which is part of the reason they lost Asprin. That and for medicine it becomes generic after X number of years if it is not updated. That's why we've gone from Tylenol to Tylenol extra strength to Tylenol Long Lasting ect... If they did not keep up with that, changing it slightly, it will go generic and that loses the company money very quickly because the trademark vultures don't have R&D to pay off and thus sell for WAY cheaper.

[SenKa]

Im not a lawyer, but im a law student specifically studying business law ATM.

 

Deutsche Telekom is in a tough position as theyve basically got to prove that the pinks Lemonade are using are similar to that of their own. I personally think anybody with eyes can decern DT's  eye searing pink from Lemonades.

 

The special bit of trouble is that DT did not "make" their colour like other companies have. They literally used CMYK Process Magenta, which is owned by Pantone. Deutsche Telekom may actually be opening themselves up to a suit themselves if anything...

[Shreyas1]

Just wait until they find out about printers!

[Bombastinator]

20 minutes ago, SenKa said:

There is a legal concept for trademarked goods that goes along with this. To very crudely summarize it, there becomes a point where a company can actually effectively lose their trademark to a product because their name is no longer synonymous with it and thusly cannot win an infringement suit. Thats why you buy "Jello Brand Gelatin" rather than "Jello". Yes, other companies can sell you Gelatin, but they can't sell you Jello.

 

Bayer failed to do this, which is part of the reason they lost Asprin. That and for medicine it becomes generic after X number of years if it is not updated. That's why we've gone from Tylenol to Tylenol extra strength to Tylenol Long Lasting ect... If they did not keep up with that, changing it slightly, it will go generic and that loses the company money very quickly because the trademark vultures don't have R&D to pay off and thus sell for WAY cheaper.

I suspect the research costs were payed off a looong time ago for Tylenol.  Well before their first patent was due to expire.  That’s how patents work it’s the reason they’re allowed in the first place. Now it’s just a cash cow abusing a system designed to offer incentives to inventors and developers.

[Bombastinator]

21 minutes ago, SenKa said:

Im not a lawyer, but im a law student specifically studying business law ATM.

 

Deutsche Telekom is in a tough position as theyve basically got to prove that the pinks Lemonade are using are similar to that of their own. I personally think anybody with eyes can decern DT's  eye searing pink from Lemonades.

 

The special bit of trouble is that DT did not "make" their colour like other companies have. They literally used CMYK Process Magenta, which is owned by Pantone. Deutsche Telekom may actually be opening themselves up to a suit themselves if anything...

I don’t think Pantone even owns process magenta.  The CMYK four color process is pretty old, and is based on color physics.  They own an ink formulation I wouldn’t doubt, but there are other color companies. Still are, I assume.  It’s been a while.  I can’t be sure of course. There’s TOYO in Japan and HKS in the EU.  They all do four color process too.  Or did.  Perhaps they don’t anymore and Pantone ate the world.  Pantone numbers are a convenient way for designers to talk about colors.  Pantone historically has been veery happy to support company color systems.  IBM blue used to not have a color number and was marked “ibm blue” in the swatch books.  Until it wasn’t and suddenly developed a number.  Hard to show evidence of that one.  Those swatch books were only good for a year before their color shifted.  I watched the name to number flip when I was in school though.  Somewhere around 1990 iirc.

[Napper198]

2 hours ago, mr moose said:

I don't think the i identifier for tech of any nature is trademarked because it has been used for so long and the original company that made the iPhone in Brazil only had a patent for Brazil.   Hyundai has the i30 the i40 and the iload, while apple has the iphone and intel has the i series CPU's. There are too many existing products to be able to claim ownership beyond being the first o trademark iphone and ipad in a few countries. (although apple still tried to get the iphone and ipad trade marks from companies that were already using them through suing them of course )

At least in the transportation space it has happened before. The original Porsche 911 was model number 901 and they originally wanted to name it that but Peugeot has a trademark for 3 digit numbers with the 2nd digit being a 0 so Porsche had to go with 911 instead. 
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_901

[SenKa]

17 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

I don’t think Pantone even owns process magenta.  The CMYK four color process is pretty old, and is based on color physics.  They own an ink formulation I wouldn’t doubt, but there are other color companies. Still are, I assume.  It’s been a while.  I can’t be sure of course. There’s TOYO in Japan and HKS in the EU.  They all do four color process too.  Or did.  Perhaps they don’t anymore and Pantone ate the world.  Pantone numbers are a convenient way for designers to talk about colors.  Pantone historically has been veery happy to support company color systems.  IBM blue used to not have a color number and was marked “ibm blue” in the swatch books.  Until it wasn’t and suddenly developed a number.  Hard to show evidence of that one.  Those swatch books were only good for a year before their color shifted.  I watched the name to number flip when I was in school though.  Somewhere around 1990 iirc.

Googling "Process Magenta" immediately netted Pantone, so i assumed as such.

[williamcll]

Remember when KIng tried to copyright "Candy" for Candy crush?

[mr moose]

2 hours ago, Napper198 said:

At least in the transportation space it has happened before. The original Porsche 911 was model number 901 and they originally wanted to name it that but Peugeot has a trademark for 3 digit numbers with the 2nd digit being a 0 so Porsche had to go with 911 instead. 
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_901

 

 

That reads like porsche just decided to change the name in stead of fighting it so no actual legal precedent was set.  Also there is no citation how do we know this is true and not another internet story?  Also we know both BMW and Hyundai use iXXX as a model number, I have not seen any lawsuits regarding those.

[porina]

12 hours ago, Polyvalent said:

Can you imagine being on the legal team that's behind this nonsense?

$$$ The lawyers are the only winners as they get paid regardless of the end result. 

 

IANAL and all that, but my first impression is that seeking to enforce any rights they might or might not have outside their business category is questionable.

 

I'm reminded of a case, where I don't know what the result was. We have mobile company Orange. I think you can guess what colour they used in their logo. Then we have the "Easy" group of companies, who also use orange for their logo. They co-existed happily until Easy Mobile became a thing and they both operated in the same area. In a quick search I can't find the result of that dispute, but following is a summary of the lead up to it with a legal angle.

https://marketinglaw.osborneclarke.com/media-and-ip/easymobile-and-orange-head-into-court/

 

[Salv8 (sam)]

23 hours ago, TVwazhere said:

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

oh it's going to be the donkey kong Nintendo v Universal City Studios lawsuit all over again.

Universal City Studios lost because king kong is public domain (anyone can use it basically)

do you know what has been public domain since the dawn of time?

thats right, colors!

untill t-mobile invents a new color, this ain't going to hold up.

[Trik'Stari]

20 hours ago, Napper198 said:

And you guys thought Comcast is evil

Sounds about something DT would do and provides further proof to my hypothesis that every ISP needs to be evil. 
 

I’m fairly certain that they won’t be able to pull it off. I.e. how did BMW get away with naming their electric car i3 while Intel had that name on their processor for years?

 

as @Trik'Stari mentioned it is possible to trademark a specific colour pigment and it is also possible to trademark a specific colour shade in your business area i.e. Kawasaki green in transportation, but that doesn’t stop you from selling green cars, just be some shades off and don’t use that specific colour pigment. 

IIRC, they have to actually copyright or trademark a specific pigment or method for creating that color.

 

John Deere green for instance, is not just a shade of green, it's the materials used to create that shade of green.

 

I may be mistaken.