T-Mobile owner sends in legal heavies to lean on small Brit biz over use of 'trademarked' magenta T-Mobile owner Deutsche Telekom is making legal threats against a small British business – on the grounds that the German company has an exclusive trademark on a shade of the colour magenta. James Ridsdale, MD of Brighton-based business Datajar, said he was stunned after receiving a letter demanding he drop his own company's …
"DT claimed that the Great British Public (bless their silly little heads) might get the two companies mixed up as a result of the pinkness"
Good point. They should choose another colour. They don't want customers thinking they are in any way affiliated to T-mobile. Bad for business.
as a part of my company identity I can then licence the use to all other companies world wide. I won't sell anything, just recieve royalties. I will need a fairly strong legal arm for the bigger players of course, but hopefully after a few smaller companies cave without a fight and start paying I should have the cash soon enough.
If you follow T Mobiles playbook you don't even need to trademark all the combinations, just a sufficient number of them to be able to claim 'similarity' with any other colours - 256 colours would probably be sufficient according to MS Paint 'basic' colour selection.
Though I may just trademark black, Red, yellow and cyan, as colours either in solid or as dots and claim all other printed logos are infringing as overlayed trademarked images..
Trademarks must be asserted, so you must be doing business.
However, the meat of the argument is actually regarding the RAL / Pantone colour to which Deutsche Telekom does indeed own the rights. Pantone is used for printing and RAL for paint and such like. At least in Germany you'll have a hard time using those colours for anything physical because the rights cover ensuring the relevant pigments are distributed.
RGB values are a different matter because you can't own the general process of mixing light to produce them. So this does indeed revert to standard trademark protection rules and whether confusion is possible. IANAL and this does seem a fairly weak case but it is never a good idea to use colours that are the same or very similar to well-known brand in your own branding.
On a slightly related note a woman from Krefeld recently received demands for payment from lawyers representing Lemmy who objected to her selling knitted dolls of the rocker. Courts often do come out in favour of rights owners and have in this case as well.
How do you intend to avoid colours similar to well known brands? That's going to be impossible, most people aren't going to be able to look and go, "That's 10% darker/lighter than brand X" unless they put them side by side, so by what you're saying it's going to be impossible to avoid a similar colour as used by a major brand based on an average users recollection and perception.
How do you intend to avoid colours similar to well known brands?
A good design agency will know how to check before they submit a pitch because things like the Pantone will pop up pretty quickly. In reality, this isn't much different to things like checking the name or typeface being used.
If you think this is stacked against small businesses then you'd be right but this is true for pretty much the whole area of IP. I'm not advocating this just trying to explain how it works.
"but it is never a good idea to use colours that are the same or very similar to well-known brand in your own branding."
In the 1970s International Computers Limited had a "liquorice all-sorts" livery in white, orange, and black - with the logo "ICL" in a square box.
It was surprise one day to see a car transporter with pretty much an identical livery - and near enough the same "ICL" logo. An unrelated company that was named something like "International Cars Limited".
"It was surprise one day to see a car transporter with pretty much an identical livery - and near enough the same "ICL" logo."
Trademarks are only granted in the area of operation. Unless you're a conglomorate like some of the korean or japanese outfits you can't have your trademark covering every possible area of business.
If I was a fish and chip shop, I could quite happily use that shade of magenta without fear of a trademark claim, as T mobile don't do takeaway food.
"RGB values are a different matter because you can't own the general process of mixing light to produce them. So this does indeed revert to standard trademark protection rules and whether confusion is possible."
IIRC BP were going to set up filling stations in the US. An American agency was advising them to change their existing corporate colour scheme to red and blue - as it was scientifically proven to be the most visually distinctive for signage at the side of roads.
Before making a decision they were taken for a drive along a road lined with different companies' filling stations. At which point it was realised that all their competitors were using red and blue - so their own existing colour scheme would be perfect differentiation.
An American agency was advising them to change their existing corporate colour scheme to red and blue - as it was scientifically proven to be the most visually distinctive for signage at the side of roads.
Really? Really, really?
That's why traffic signs are red and blue, is it?
One interesting fact. Due to chromatic aberration in the eye, red text on a blue background (or vice versa) is very difficult to read because the focus for each colour is slightly different. The eye focuses on the red, but the red-blue boundary is blurred. So it focuses on the blue, but the red-blue boundary is blurred. Attempting to read such text for any length of time will give you a headache.
That said, the filling station logos I've seen tend to be disjunct red and blue on a white background. Somewhat better then a sign consisting solely of red and blue, but even so if you're looking at the red bits then the blue bits are blurred and vice versa.
Any agency advising red/blue signage is talking complete shite. Unless they're banking on it giving people headaches when they look at it, so they pull into the filling station for a coffee and to buy aspirin.
"The eye focuses on the red, but the red-blue boundary is blurred. So it focuses on the blue, but the red-blue boundary is blurred. "
Which is why flagmakers put a pinstripe between clashing colours centuries ago for visibility. the classic examples being the Union flag (it's not _all_ the St Andrew's cross) and the red stars of the NZ flag on their blue background.
You don't need to patent all RGB colours only the remaining 2327 RAL colours. RAL is a limited palette of colours chosen because of their reproducibility. That is why DT chose to specify a RAL number in their trademark. The important thing about RAL colours is that no matter which manufacturer you use for your paint/dye/pigment you are always guaranteed to get exactly the same colour for a given colour number. The colours are also chosen for their permanence which is why the range appears to be quite limited.
IMHO allowing anyone to "own" a colour should be banned for the simple fact that worldwide there are more business entities that visually discernible colours and therefore not enough colours to go round. Even 24bit RGB gives only 16.8 million colours most of which are indiscernible from their nearest neighbours.
On the case in point, the DT legal action should fail since they themselves limited their trademark application to a single RAL colour. Any other RAL colour is easily perceived to be a different by any human with normal colour vision.
The problem is worse in USA. USPTO makes more money from approvals than rejections and US model is the assumption that if it's an invalid award, it will be invalidated by a court case.
"Winter is Coming" book #4 in "Cocky Seasons" series. Obviously the background of the romance's book cover is in a nice shade of pinkish magenta. Obviously I'm now an author for the day job rather than in IT/Programming/Electronics.
The system for Trademarks & Patents needs reformed. Abolishing Copyright, Trademarks, Registered Design (Design patent in USA) and Patents is the wrong solution. We need reform.
The only worthwhile aspects to abolish are DRM, DMCA, perpetual renewals of copyrights by Corporations. Maybe ICANN. Why can't a domain name follow copyright rules. It's crazy that a malware/squatter/ads can grab it if you forget to renew or skip for a year?
When I eventually put my plans for benign world/national/county* domination in action, then the first against the wall won't be the lawyers. No, that'd be far too expensive, time-consuming, and fraught with wrangling.
In the glorious republic, I will instead give defendants in blatantly bullshit C&D, trademark, and IPO cases the option for Trial by Combat; The respective MD/CEO of each organisation in a fight to submission with weapons decided by the smaller party. No stand-ins or champions.
*Actual extent of domination may vary. Level of benign also variable. In fact, it'd be like Populous, only with better graphics
Apart from that, I have nothing constructive to say about this article.
Nonetheless, DT claimed that the Great British Public (bless their silly little heads) might get the two companies mixed up as a result of the pinkness:
Not sure how someone could mistake two different companies with different names.
"cease and desist… from all use of the Figurative Sign and the colour magenta and closely similar colour shades".
You have the trademark on a specific colour not similar shades so there is no case to answer.
Nonetheless, DT claimed that the Great British Public (bless their silly little heads) might get the two companies mixed up as a result of the pinkness
Reply saying that the Great British Public are clearly more intelligent than the directors of T-Mobile as they do not get the two mixed up.
"Reply saying that the Great British Public are clearly more intelligent than the directors of T-Mobile as they do not get the two mixed up."
I thought T-Mobile and Orange merged in the UK and became EE. Looking at the DataJar website, it doesn't look like they trade outside the UK. There doesn't appear to be any territory or business overlap. And of course there;s the point raised earlier that the trademark is for a highly specific colour definition which DataJar are not using.
"DT hires lawyers and then some senior exec decides to use them."
No, I doubt any company executive was involved.
The way these thing work is the company hires a local lawyer to "defend their interests". Said local lawyer soon discovers the retainer doesn't cover the repayments on a Mercedes and that he actually has to run up some billable hours before he can, well, bill for them. Thus he jumps on things like this. It doesn't matter if its sensible or if he can win, all that matters is he has some hours to bill the client.
As evidence in this case I cite the generic IP related press release. If anyone at head office had any idea what this was about it would reference specifics.
The real problem is that companies pay these bills without questioning the value of the work done.
I thought they merged it with their French neighbour's favourite colour to form EE, then sold it to BT.
That was just the UK instance of T-Mobile. The brand continues to exist in many other countries, and is still owned by DT. Likewise with Orange.
Indeed, one of the main reasons they changed the name to EE when Orange and T-Mobile merged rather than maintaining one or both existing brands was so that they could sell the combined entity off without having to sell the trademarks.
>That was just the UK instance of T-Mobile.
This is going to be interesting, as DT are playing the 'EU' single market card on this and given T-Mobile UK effectively ceased trading in 2010 and EE stopped using the branding in 2015, there are questions over whether DT have done enough subsequently to protect their brand in the UK.
I also find it amusing that DT are wanting DataJar to write to the UKIPO etc. when in fact this is something that DT should be doing - perhaps if they did this they would understand why the UKIPO -operating under EU law - allowed the DataJar application to proceed to publication... I suspect they know full well that they don't really have a case and are just trying to bully DataJar...
Personally, I would pluck a figure out-of-the-air and send that back as the price of undertaking the requested work. I'm sure as a reflection of their "high value on the integrity of a fair market and the business contributions of every market participant" and the avoidance of bad publicity and the legal costs, DT would happily write out a cheque for a few million...
This does seem a particularly stupid claim given that after a series of implosions and collisions T-Mobile no longer trade in the UK as such. Maybe they should have thought about that before imploding with Orange, and then allowing the lumpen ee(k) to be swallowed by the BT mobster [oops, autocorrect], monster.
Readers with long memories will remember that once upon a time, the future was bright, the future was Orange; and that T-Mobile offered great value tariffs if you were OK with their poorer coverage.
But eek offer nothing apart from higher prices, and since T-Mobile willingly gave up their brand here, I say tough luck to them.
Whats the bet that was not submitted directly by Tmobile but by whatever bunch of <span class="strike">pirates</span> lawyers they have hired to "defend" their intellectual property, making this a case of the soft target getting worked over so some arse can be seen to do something?
Ps anyone knows what I did wrong with the span it's not rendering for me?
@AC; 'Having just binge watched "Suits""
Bet you only watched it to get a good look (#) at Merkin Meogle or whatever her name is before Harry locks her up in a trunk (trunk!) the Tower of London, so no big hunk (hunk!) can steal her away from him. (Get down!)
(#) To respectfully observe the latest addition to our beloved Royal Family that it's our "pleasure" to subsidise, of course.
@}{amis}{
Ps anyone knows what I did wrong with the span it's not rendering for me?
You assumed that El Reg's list of allowed (for those of us with badges) HTML mark-up was correct. :) The documentation didn't keep up with a coding change (or was never correct in the first place).
If I were you, I'd go on strike in protest. :)
We need a crowd-sourced distributed binary (hexagonal?) chop on the RGB triplets to find out exactly where the lawyers stop alleging that a particular shade infringes. We can then mock them mercilessly for claiming that one shade of magenta is OK and an indistinguishable one a fraction away in colour space doesn't.
Not defending legalistic bullshit et al. However, at the risk of being the messenger that gets shot I doubt your proposal would achieve anything except (misleadingly) making a bunch of geeks think they'd outsmarted some lawyers. If they cared at all, they'd as likely be amused that the alleged "mockery" missed the entire point- The Law Does Not Work How Geeks Think It Does.
There seems to be a fallacy among some geek types (#) that the law is a fixed set of rules that can be tied down and gamed by exploiting them with some (often borderline ludicrous) interpretation. (##)
It doesn't really work like this- in common law-based countries such as the United States and most of the United Kingdom at least. (###) Even less so when trademarks are involved, which are inevitably dependent upon context and interpretation.
So I doubt you're going to be able to pin down the "cutoff" point because there won't be one. It'll probably vary depending on context and what it's in the lawyer's interest to successfully argue.
And even if you think such tactics are hypocritical bullshit- and I'm not necessarily disagreeing with that- you think the lawyers are likely to be bothered by any attempt to mock them on that basis? Much of what lawyers do- particularly in areas like this- is to find and exploit ambiguity and subtlety in the law in their clients' interest.
(#) As prone as anyone to assuming the rest of the world works in the same way as it does in their mindset and area of expertise.
(##) In their fantasy version of the law, this would typically force the judge to grant them victory because they'd- in their own mind- logically followed that (supposedly) fixed set of rules. In reality, it would more likely see them censured for playing silly buggers and quickly losing the case.
(##) England, Wales and Northern Ireland use common law. The Scottish legal system is a mixture of common and civil law, but I doubt Scottish law would be involved at all with this case against a company based in England.
www.lastminute.com also claim to have copyrighted the colour magenta, or to be more accurate, Pantone 676C which is the shade that DT claim's to own. Then again DT's bullies solicitors won't take on a big company.
Perukes and daggers at dawn please. Last lawyer standing will be shot.
The legal argument there would be around domain for use such that a consumer can't be misled by virtue of offering similar services/products. DT won't claim to be offering cheap hotel rooms whereas they are trying to infer that Datajar are in the same domain, so lastminute.com's trademark isn't relevant.
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