The world of Trademarks just keep getting crazier. Deutche Telekom Trademarks the color magenta. Then it demands that Engadget Mobile discontinues using the color. Nasty grams from companies claiming they own a color or common shape is becoming a norm in our industry.
Having met with numerous Intellectual Property (I.P.) Attorneys we know that confusion in the marketplace plays a huge roll in the outcome. We look at the case of Engadget. They are NOT a cellphone carrier or a distributor of telecom equipment? How in the world is this possible?
Trademarking a any color or common shape should never happen. Can we trademark Cyan? Yellow? Black? How about orange? We understand that it’s use of color in that industry or field, but what about the environmental movement and the color Green?
This brought us to wonder… Who owns Hues? After doing a quick search we find a website called:
colormatters.com – http://www.colormatters.com/color_trademark.html
This site states, 80% of visual information is related to color. Color will help distinguish you from your competition. They also talk about the importance of color as a brand identity. Today the color war is exploding and the use of color is generation unprecedented lawsuits.
This site goes over lawsuits of “color” trademark infringement lawsuits. They also include interesting court rulings.
As a agency, we’ll be closely watching the Magenta Trademark story.
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