Mon 08 Sep 2008

RSS Feed

Edited by Paul Hales

Published by Incisive Media Investments Ltd.

Terms and Conditions of use.

To advertise in Europe e-mail here

To advertise in Asia email here.

To advertise in North America email here.

Join the INQbot Mail List for a weekly guide to our news stories:

Subscribe

T-Mobile claims to have trademarked Magenta

Riff-raff and Frankenfurter safe

MOBILE phone outfit T-Mobile is the proud owner of a trademark which says it owns the colour Magenta.

According to the Colourlovers' bog, T-Mobile and its parent Deutsche Telekom, have trademarked magenta, they also have a trademark on the use of their two colour logo.

The move means that if you are painting a picture you should be ok using the Magenta tube but if you are thinking about it in connection with anything telephonish you can expect a visit from T-Mobile's lawyers. Actually it probably also applies to the Interweb so any designs using Magenta should be deleted right away.

According to the trademark, Deutsche Telekom uses magenta for designating its services and in its advertisements and/or commercials and has been "the owner" of the colour mark No. 395 52 630 “magenta” (RAL 4010) since September 12, 2000 when it registered it on the basis of a proven secondary meaning for goods and services in the field of tele-communications. When you look at a Magenta sunset, the trademark implies, you immediately think of T-Mobile's phone services.

It is just as well that the Rocky Horror Picture Show banned its Magenta character from using a phone because she could not say the letter w. Otherwise Riff-Raff, Frankenfurter, Brad and Janet would have been in the slammer by now. µ

Comments

Oh Really?...

Interesting idea, but then again I bought myself an Nokia N95 fairly recently (nuts to the iphone) from o2, and still the box it arrived in was the generic Nokia one, and I have to say there's bits of magenta and white all over it. Open the box and suddenly there's more white, blank and magenta colours. When I flicked through the manual the first thing I actually thought is that it looks like something from T-Mobile...
posted by : Steff, 07 November 2007

Has anybody told the City of Salford?

Salford City council painted everything magenta several years ago. They even replaced all the wheelie bin lids with sorry magenta ones.

Never mind, it's probably OK as long as nobody uses it near a phone number or on a web site
posted by : TCB, 07 November 2007

common knowledge

Its common knowledge that Intel had to change the magenta in the Centrino logo to a pink colour, after a brush with T-mobile lawyers.....crazy
posted by : none, 08 November 2007

which magenta?

Oh, really? Did they trademark all magenta colors (yes, there are a few)?. Did they trademark all magenta tints (is a 99% magenta the magenta they have trademarked)? Will they be able to take a phone company to the courts if their colour is "very similar to" magenta?

Sheesh! There are issues we should be concerned about. And then there are issues...
posted by : acrobat, 11 November 2007
IThound
Search for solutions, reports & analysis

Newsletter signup



 

Top INQ Stories