The Color Magenta, Or How T-Mobile Thinks It Owns A General Color

Trademark

from the ownership-society dept

You might think that throwing a word like “magenta” into the Techdirt search engine wouldn’t get you any results. But you would be wrong about that and you’d be wrong entirely because of T-Mobile and its parent company Deutsche Telekom. See, Telekom has trademark rights in several countries for a very specific shade of magenta. And with those trademarks, Telekom rather enjoys threatening other businesses that dare to use anything that remotely looks like magenta in their trade dress, whether the color in question is actually magenta or not, and regardless of whether the other company is even a competitor or not.

And Telekom is still at it to the present. A German court has informed a startup insurance company out of New York called Lemonade that it must cease to use the shade of pink it’s been using in it’s branding for three years.

New York-based Lemonade is a 3-year-old company that lives completely online and mostly focuses on homeowners and renter’s insurance. The company uses a similar color to magenta — it says it’s “pink” — in its marketing materials and its website. But Lemonade was told by German courts that it must cease using its color after launching its services in that country, which is also home to T-Mobile owner Deutsche Telekom. Although the ruling only applies in Germany, Lemonade says it fears the decision will set a precedent and expand to other jurisdictions such as the U.S. or Europe.

“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. “Absent that, the company’s actions just smack of corporate bully tactics, where legions of lawyers attempt to hog natural resources – in this case a primary color—that rightfully belong to everyone.”

Here is the branding for Lemonade. Judge for yourself whether you think it is somehow confusing with T-Mobile.

Does that branding use a pinkish purple? Yes, yes it does. How close is that color to that trademarked by Telekom? I have no earthly idea, nor do I much care. T-Mobile provides cellular service, whereas Lemonade provides insurance services. Those aren’t in the same market. And whatever distinction Telekom might claim that its magenta color has earned, that distinction certainly doesn’t magically make any of this confusing.

And, separately, it’s still rather galling that a company like Telekom can somehow own the rights to a color in a way that causes it to think nobody else, full stop, can use it. And, yet, Lemonade complied with the court’s instructions. But not without making another move.

Although Lemonade has complied with the ruling by removing its pink color from marketing materials in Germany, it’s also trying to turn the legal matter into an opportunity. The company today began throwing some shade in social media under the hashtag “#FreeThePink,” though a quick check on Twitter shows it’s gained little traction thus far: Schreiber, the company’s CEO, holds the top tweet under “#FreeThePink” with 13 retweets and 42 likes.

Lemonade also filed a motion today with the European Union Intellectual Property Office, or EUIPO, to invalidate Deutsche Telekom’s magenta trademark.

It would be absolutely delicious if Lemonade ended up getting Telekom’s trademark invalidated. Free the pink.

Filed Under: magenta, trademark
Companies: deutsche telekom, lemonade, t-mobile