T-Mobile says it owns the color magenta

M76

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You can't use it anymore!

Original

Startup insurance provider Lemonade is trying to make the best of a sour situation after T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom claimed it owns the exclusive rights to the color magenta.

“If some brainiac at Deutsche Telekom had invented the color, their possessiveness would make sense,” Daniel Schreiber, CEO and co-founder of Lemonade, said in a statement.

So much magenta on their site, this clearly can't stand:

lemon.png



Guess this means all printers are trash now, cause you'll never be able to buy a magenta cartridge for them as t-com will claim those as well!

Damn corporate politics, and we wonder why the world is going to the shitter.
 
IIRC, magenta is made by blending several different other colors together in specific ratios to get the desired tone, shade, and other characteristics......

so hopefully they will be able to also explain how they, or anyone else for that matter, can make this outrageous claim........
 
If it were in the same industry, I could understand but........
 
Just an example of a big company owning the courts or whoever decides (this kind of thing) in Germany.

This will not fly anywhere else.

And the color doesn't even match...
 
Just an example of a big company owning the courts or whoever decides (this kind of thing) in Germany.

This will not fly anywhere else.

And the color doesn't even match...

It sounds like it doesn't even fly in Germany if it actually goes to court. T-Mobile just has more money to litigate than a random internet insurance startup. Cheaper and easier to change the color than to litigate.
 
Wouldn't be the first time Pantones were brought in.

Feb. 10, 2014 at 9:18 a.m. CST
A squabble over who stole the magic marker seems more fitting for a classroom than a courtroom. But a federal judge has sided with T-Mobile in a recent trademark lawsuit, saying that Aio Wireless, an AT&T subsidiary, isn't allowed to use colors resembling T-Mobile's promotional "magenta" color.

The Texas court has ordered AT&T to stop using Pantone 676C, a.k.a "plum," over fears that it might cause consumers to confuse the two brands. According to the presiding judge, T-Mobile successfully argued that letting Aio continue to use a variant of magenta would cause it irreparable harm.
[...]
T-Mobile's claim stems from its parent company, Deutsche Telekom, which in the 2000s trademarked a pinkish hue known as RAL 4010 for its promotional campaigns. A side-by-side comparison back in August showed that what T-Mobile argues is "magenta" seemed pretty distinctive from the wine-colored tone that Aio used. In fact, T-Mobile's definition of magenta appears to have expanded beyond its original trademark; rather than owning a specific shade of pink, the company is now claiming nearby colors, as well.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...0/court-says-t-mobile-owns-the-color-magenta/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ut-what-does-magenta-mean-anyway/?arc404=true


Other colors you may get a C&D letter using:
https://digitalsynopsis.com/design/trademarked-colors/


If you were never hip on the Vantablack/Pinkest Pink Kapoor vs Semple thing, it's a good read.
https://www.wired.com/story/vantablack-anish-kapoor-stuart-semple/
 
One of the guys who basically calls the shots in Loudoun County for all the data center zoning/construction told Raging Wire they couldn't use the shade of purple they normally use for their buildings. So, in response, the guy in charge of the paint color changed it to an ever so slightly different shade of blue from a different company and really pissed off the former. I can't recall specifics, and I might have mangled the humor of the situation since it's been a few years, but I think the different company was close to the big guy in the county.

You can tell if you drive by a new Raging Wire data center on a corner lot, and then their original sites somewhere else, that there's a huge color difference.

So Lemonade should change the shade just enough.
 
It's pretty normal, Hershey owns the trademark for orange featured on Reese's cups. In both cases it's a pretty generic color, but at the same time not very common on packaging and branding materials.
 
Clickbait titles are clickbaity. Yawn.
And commenters who don't read the article are annoying.
It's only click-bait if it's misleading. They do think they own exclusive rights to the use of the color magenta.
 
Funny I did read the article -- they own magenta as much as the legal system lets them. And will continue to do so (as they have). Given they haven't gone after Pantone's magenta colors and a bevy of other players in the color world says something about whether TMobile owns "magenta".
 
It's pretty normal, Hershey owns the trademark for orange featured on Reese's cups. In both cases it's a pretty generic color, but at the same time not very common on packaging and branding materials.


Right, and this isn't just a single color. The Color scheme used on their website is exactly the same as the one used on Lemonade: Grey on white text with sharp magenta highlights.

https://www.telekom.com/en

250479_lemon.png


This is actually a good use of the law.
 
Right, and this isn't just a single color. The Color scheme used on their website is exactly the same as the one used on Lemonade: Grey on white text with sharp magenta highlights.

https://www.telekom.com/en

View attachment 197965

This is actually a good use of the law.

What? So now we cant design websites with colors we want? Color is not a copyright or we would run out of them lol. By that regard we should shut down all websites that use lot of the same colors lol.
 
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What? So now we cant design websites with colors we want? Color is not a copyright or we would run out of them lol. By that regard we should shut down all websites that use lot of the same colors lol.


Yeah, I agree that there's no real crossover between industries, so it's not so obvious a conflict! But if they were both in Insurance, this would be an open-and-shut case.

The "T" is trademarked, complete with the magenta color.
 
Yeah, I agree that there's no real crossover between industries, so it's not so obvious a conflict! But if they were both in Insurance, this would be an open-and-shut case.

The "T" is trademarked, complete with the magenta color.

Nothing about the Lemonade site makes me think T-Mobile, though now T-Mobile is always going to be associated in my mind to something very negative.
 
Nothing about the Lemonade site makes me think T-Mobile, though now T-Mobile is always going to be associated in my mind to something very negative.

I agree. Given how T-Mobile shoots for good image this is just dumb. I mean this shit is insurance lol. If it was another cell company then I guess they could argue but when it isn’t even a direct competition this just sounds like big but bullying.
 
All you raging types do realize that if they DON'T take people to court for using "their" shade of magenta they lose their ability to claim it as a trademark right? This is pretty basic - no different than if Tiffany sued some random pawn shop for using Pantone 1837 as a major color in their web / logo / whatever design. If "lemonade" is really that lazy that they're copying someone else's color palette... don't think I'd trust them to provide any other service with more care or attention. But go ahead and be outraged. It'll solve something. ;)
 
It sounds like it doesn't even fly in Germany if it actually goes to court. T-Mobile just has more money to litigate than a random internet insurance startup. Cheaper and easier to change the color than to litigate.

Loser pays the court bills, so not really cheaper if the small company wins, which they will because they should
 
All you raging types do realize that if they DON'T take people to court for using "their" shade of magenta they lose their ability to claim it as a trademark right? This is pretty basic - no different than if Tiffany sued some random pawn shop for using Pantone 1837 as a major color in their web / logo / whatever design. If "lemonade" is really that lazy that they're copying someone else's color palette... don't think I'd trust them to provide any other service with more care or attention. But go ahead and be outraged. It'll solve something. ;)
It's not exactly the same, in fact it's not even that close.
T-com color = 225 0 118
Lemonade color = 255 0 131

And no, they haven't changed it yet, I've taken the color sample from a web archive snapshot taken in January. It was the same color.
But go ahead and act like a condescending wise-ass, it'll solve something.
 
All you raging types do realize that if they DON'T take people to court for using "their" shade of magenta they lose their ability to claim it as a trademark right? This is pretty basic - no different than if Tiffany sued some random pawn shop for using Pantone 1837 as a major color in their web / logo / whatever design. If "lemonade" is really that lazy that they're copying someone else's color palette... don't think I'd trust them to provide any other service with more care or attention. But go ahead and be outraged. It'll solve something. ;)


Oh boy. Yea providing service has to do with color. Nice try lol. You tried to tell everyone how stupid they are but your rage seems to have gotten the better of you lol.
 
seeing that I would have guessed they were related as T-Mobile is into other things like banking so... time for those fellas to change their color slightly...also T-Mobile has been using this magenta color for a loooooooooooooooooong time
 
seeing that I would have guessed they were related as T-Mobile is into other things like banking so... time for those fellas to change their color slightly...also T-Mobile has been using this magenta color for a loooooooooooooooooong time
So Allianz should also change their color because blue has been Ford's for a long time? This is nonsensical.
 
Right, and this isn't just a single color. The Color scheme used on their website is exactly the same as the one used on Lemonade: Grey on white text with sharp magenta highlights.

This is actually a good use of the law.

The shade of red isn't anywhere near the same color. T-Mobile's site uses magenta while Lemonade's site is decidedly pink. Not to mention that the sites don't look anywhere near the same other than a white background with different shades of red for some text....
 
So Allianz should also change their color because blue has been Ford's for a long time? This is nonsensical.
no but they should not be contructing their site in such a manner as to imitate t-mobile

upload_2019-11-7_7-41-24.png


upload_2019-11-7_7-41-57.png
 
So Allianz should also change their color because blue has been Ford's for a long time? This is nonsensical.
You should pick an example in the same industry. Here, I didn't even search explicitly for these, they're just the first ones that came up for financial services.
upload_2019-11-7_8-45-48.png


Every single one of them use some shade of blue.
 
It's not exactly the same, in fact it's not even that close.
T-com color = 225 0 118
Lemonade color = 255 0 131

And no, they haven't changed it yet, I've taken the color sample from a web archive snapshot taken in January. It was the same color.
But go ahead and act like a condescending wise-ass, it'll solve something.
If Lemonade is using a different color T-Mobile will likely lose the lawsuit.

And I will continue to act like a condescending wise-ass, even though there's nothing to be "solved" in this thread.

Oh boy. Yea providing service has to do with color. Nice try lol. You tried to tell everyone how stupid they are but your rage seems to have gotten the better of you lol.
Apparently you are stupid. A trademark is about identifying goods or services, not "providing" them.
 
If Lemonade is using a different color T-Mobile will likely lose the lawsuit.

And I will continue to act like a condescending wise-ass, even though there's nothing to be "solved" in this thread.


Apparently you are stupid. A trademark is about identifying goods or services, not "providing" them.


Oh must feel so good to sit behind a keyboard and call names. I won't fall to your level. But anyways I can guarantee you are not talking to a stupid person. No fucks given here.
 
I was under the impression a Supreme Court ruling negated any claim to owning a commonly found color or such related to. Looking for the court case now.

Otherwise, this is as ridiculous and outlandish claim and should be tossed out. The Earth has a much longer claim on the color than T-Mobile.
 
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