T-Mobile Claims Trademark In the Color Magenta

An anonymous reader writes "Yesterday Engadget Mobile received a nice letter from Deutsche Telekom / T-Moblie demanding that they stop using the color magenta on engadgetmobile.com. ("Yep, seriously" they say.) Today several sites have gone magenta in a show of solidarity."

they have a point

The title of the page has "t-mobile" in huge letter in magenta, as part of the words "engadget-mobile"

I could totally believe that a non-technical (ok, stupid) person might mistake this for an official t-mobile site.

branding consists of colors, words, typefaces, graphics, and this site mimics a couple of tmobile's elements. It doesn't seem to be a parody or any other such form of protected use.

Re:they have a point

The magenta "t-mobile" is a temporary response to the letter (in legal terms I believe it's called a raspberry). Their standard logo doesn't look like T-Mobil's at all.

Re:they have a point

You do realize that they uploaded that logo, the "deceptive" one you're berating, today, which just happens to be April 1? And that they did so specifically to spite [youtube.com] T-Mobile? And that they wrote a blog post [engadget.com] stating exactly their actions and intent?

Congratulations, you've been had.

on that note

i just got a trademark on the the colour blue, watch out IBM!

You screwed up! AHAHHA

AHA! You just got the trademark on the "colour blue".

i got the trademark on the COLOR blue, which is good in the USA, not just across the pond!

Slashdot Participation?

Slashdot could join in by reviving the OMG Ponies theme. Pink is close enough to magenta, right?

Way to Stick It To Your Sponsor

Did anyone else find it uncomfortably odd that there was a big magenta T-Mobil ad [photobucket.com] right in the middle of Engadget's page as they "stuck it to them."

You know, refusing to host their magenta ads might be a better way to stick it to them ... or perhaps they were asking you not to use magenta so that users wouldn't confuse the ad with the site?

It's lawyers adding up hours / protecting the TM

The letter is a combination of the TMobile trademark lawyers doing what lawyers do...billing hours. Plus, they are protecting the TMoblie trademark. With Trademark law you must prove that you have diligently protect your TM by notifying parties of infringement. In every suspected case. With Endgadget there is no confusion or dilution of the TM. But, if someday TMobile has to defend their TM in court against another mobile provider who might use the color..they can haul out the big box of all the letters they sent to everyone who used Magenta and prove they diligently protected their TM

simple solution

Engadget should just reply saying "We respect your trademark for the color Magenta, however, we are using the colour Magenta."

It's so obvious!

The real April Fools on /. is that the web server is probably running on Win2k3 for a day.

Free Magenta

Check out this website. It's filled with anti 'T-Mobile owns Meganta' drawings, pictures, comics and graphics.
http://www.freemagenta.nl/ [freemagenta.nl]

I especially like the one from Michael Wolbert (do a search for his name), somewhere on 1/3 of the page.

Re:Are they kidding?

Caterpillar has Cat Yellow
John Deere has John Deere Green

Re:Are they kidding?

Noone is suing anyone.
If you had bothered to RTFA, you'd know that T-Mobiles lawyers just asked Engadget not to use that color.

Re:Are they kidding?

Usually when these things get posted to slashdot they seem pretty cut-and-dry, and I can't argue with your specific example, but there are some mitigating factors here:
1) T-Mobile's letter was nice (this shouldn't factor in court or anything, but...)
  a) they stated they were "obligated" to defend their trademark
  b) they specifically kissed engadget's ass
  c) there's no doubt that engadget's current logo infringes (this was done intentionally, as a FUCK YOU to T-Mobile)
2) Engadget Mobile specifically deals in the area (mobile phones ya know) that T-Mobile deals in

What if you painted your tractor repair shop John Deere Green? Or used it in your logo?

I'm not sure how this is going to turn out, but I'm not going to cancel my T-Mobile service that I don't have out of spite or anything. Bloggers can be whiny sons of bitches, just like lawyers.

Re:Are they kidding?

I agree... this smacks of a corporate/blogging troll to me. Notice how T-Mobile only asked them to stop using the color magenta in a "trademark-infringing" way. They never claimed that the color magenta was trademarked - it is only trademarked in relation to their logo and corporate identity. In other words, "please don't try to confuse our customers by making it appear our companies are somehow related."

It seemed like a perfectly reasonable request to me. The summary talked of "demanding", but I have to say, that was perhaps the nicest "demand" I've ever heard.

Re:Are they kidding?

It is not according to the European Courts. You can trademark a colour for a specific market (say, telecommunications). The problem is that many telco's now see the Internet as their market and thus assume their trademark applies their as well. Orange has been doing the same for years, threating websites that use orange on their website or in their domainname (yes, I lost my domain / website as well, because it isn't all talk, they really sue and are prepared to fight it to the European Court). So, no orange, no magenta, which colour will be next?

IMHO, granting trademark on colours is another Tragedy of the Commons.

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

Not totally sure what your point is. There are plenty of places in the world today where wearing the "wrong" color will get you killed.

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

If you wear magenta, however, you probably deserve it.

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

When I read the article that it dawned on me that the color on the T-Mobile logo isn't magenta anyways the logo #e42384, and magenta is #ff00ff!

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

If you weren't a noble, could you even afford a purple cloak? Today's purple dyes are cheap because they are synthetic.

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

You could still have been a wealthy merchant without being a noble - a regular pleb wouldn't be able to afford purple dye, of course, but a number of people might.

Also, it should be noted that only the Roman emperor was allowed to wear an entirely purple piece of clothing at all. Senators (that is, those from the senatorial class) were allowed a broad purple stripe on their tunics; equites (knights) were allowed a thin purple stripe. So even a thin purple stripe (much less expensive than full purple) could get you into trouble.

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

Just to back that up, there is for instance this passage from the Penguin edition of Marcellinus's The Later Roman Empire: A.D. 354-378 [amazon.com] :

Next the affair of the [unauthorised] royal robe was investigated, and after the workers in purple had been tortured and had admitted the making of a short sleveless tunic, a man named Maras was brought forward.

Re:A throwback to the Roman Empire?

Are you referring to the toga praetexta, the toga pulla, toga picta, or a variation of the toga trabea, and as worn by men, women, citizens, freedmen, plebeians, patricians, quirites, priests, members of the Senate, or some other group?

Actually, I'm gonna go with "not knowing what you're talking about".

Re:This is an April Fool's joke.

Wrong, try again next time.

Tiffany's has trademarked a shade of blue, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiffany_Blue [wikipedia.org]

Wrong, try again.

Wrong, try again next time. Tiffany's has trademarked a shade of blue, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiffany_Blue [wikipedia.org]

Wrong, try again. The color and the product have to be linked in some way, with the color being distinctive to the product. When you think of magenta, it's highly unlikely that the first thing that pops into your head is "T Mobile". T Mobile can't trademark the color magenta any more than IBM can trademark the color blue or UPS can trademark the color brown. In specific contexts, sure. In relation to specific logos or other marks, you bet. But not the color by itself in such generic cases.

Maybe you should try clicking one more link from the page you linked to here. "Whether a colour can serve as a trade mark depends on the visual perception of the viewer. Normally, the distinctiveness through use must be shown." I'm sorry, but until you can show me how magenta&mdashor any generic color&mdashis distinctively associated with T Mobile, you fail.