Fight for a “free magenta”

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In The Netherlands, a social movement is born to protect the free use of the magenta colour in communication materials. The fight has begun recently, when mobile carrier T-Mobile has started a legal fight versus a series of Dutch brands such as Slam FM, Compello and 100% NL which magenta in their logo.

Read on: Fight for a “free magenta”

(thank you benedikt)

8 Comments leave a comment below

  1. Yea, I blogged about it the other day noting how bizarre it is to try and lay claim to a colour so widespread as Magenta.

    http://www.perezfox.com/2007/11/05/t-mobile-owns-magenta/

  2. This should be elegal, how can you detain copywrite of something you haven’t created, or own? I claim the letter A, no one can use the letter A on advertising. How stupid is this?

  3. OMG are you kidding? That’s ri-di-cu-lous!!
    Wow, I’m speechless!

  4. This really is a case of taking TradeMark too far. It’s one thing if they’re claiming a particular shape juxtaposed to a sans serifed typeface and the shape is this quality of magenta. I could support that scenario, but to say the color blend itself is their protected trademark – that’s ridiculous. I hope they’re not basing that on some Pantone custom ink blend thing…

  5. OMG indeed! I thought you were kidding!

  6. I’m sorry to say, but this is nothing new. A court in Germany already ruled years ago in favour of the Telekom in at least one case that I know of.

    The same goes btw. for Nivea’s shade of blue, for example or for some Heinz’ turquoise of some baked beans cans.

    See Wikipedia’s “Colour trademark” article or in German “Farbmarke”.

  7. @SabineM: well yeah, I can understand companies protecting their specific colours in their specific fields, but magenta is a pure press color, it’s not theirs to lay claimto. The Nivea or KLM blue is a specific MIX colour, therefor I can accept it being theirs (although technically it belongs to Pantone, but who cares).

    Another case of smallminded suits who want to annex creative bits that don’t belong to them. Plus, T mobile attacks radiostations: they’re not even in the same branch! Absolutely preposterous.

  8. T-Mobile have registered the color of magenta as a trademark in the telecom and online services sector. You can of course use magenta but you have to make sure that no confusion is possible with T-Mobile’s mark, including colour or design. However I don’t understand the fight versus those radio stations as nobody would think they are connected with T-Mobile. This sounds like a viral campaign.

    http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/09/know-your-rights-does-t-mobile-really-own-magenta/