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By: laia martinell
Colour Ownership - T- Mobile Registers Magenta (GALLERY)
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Deutsche Telekom, mother company for T-Mobile in Holland, has registered magenta at the European Brandoffice to prevent any other company in Holland from using this colour for their communication devices, logos or stationary.
I thought they were joking because it seemed pretty impossible that someone can own a colour (I would like to own purple!)
As you can imagine, this measure has already brought up many protestations around the country and lots of debates around the issue. Creative agencies in particular foresee clear limitations on their creativity if this example is to be followed by other companies.
Lava Graphic Design in Amsterdam has already created a site to fight for magenta’s rights to be free to use by all. It has received enormous repercussion so far.
There have been a lot of imaginings of how life would be if we could not use magenta anymore (no more magenta lips on ads, no more Pink Panther, no more cool power point presentations, no more bright pink for dutch life!)
Anyhow, I still find it hard to believe that a company can own exclusivity rights on a particular colour…
Priscilla Tomasoa, spokeswoman for T-Mobile Holland, just told us that the ANP message was not right. The mother company Deutsche Telekom AG is behind the legal claim of the color margenta, and not T-Mobile. Reaction T-Mobile, Holland.
(freemagenta.nl)
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Via: freemagenta.nl
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Comments:
 This is preposterous! This T-Mobile company should at least create their own type of magenta ink or at least claim a specific spot color that is magenta like. But to claim an ink that is basically created by using one of the four CMYK colors at 100% and claiming ownership over it is absurd! It would be like them claiming ownership over the word "and"! I mean...WTF T-mobile?
If I ever decide to switch cell plans, the fact that you are now trying to prevent me (a graphic designer with a magenta logo) from using magenta pisses me off and will make sure NEVER to consider your stupid company as an option!By: macoROCKS on Jan 31, 08 | 4 Trends | 23 Comments |
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And what about companies that had already registered their brand logos with magenta as a color? Hello? By: macoROCKS on Jan 31, 08 | 4 Trends | 23 Comments |
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This is neither outrageous nor unusual - many brands have trademarked a colour particular to them - this is to protect the equity of their brand and to ensure that it is used consistently by agents and licensees.
Many businesses go to the trouble of commissioning their own fonts (Tate & British Airways spring to mind) and so why shouldn't these brands protect their assets? By: Ben Mainwaring on Feb 5, 08 | 0 Trends | 2 Comments |
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This isn't like commissioning a font foundry to make a font for a brand, the key term here being "unique". Plus magenta existed way before T-Mobil...how can they claim this as an asset? A brand asset implies that they're protecting the brand they created, but they did not create 100% magenta.
Read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magenta and you will realize that magenta is not that unique. It is actually considered a primary color in process printing. It would be the equivalent of registering 100% black or 000000. LITERALLY!
If T-Mobil had registered PMS 226 (made of cyan 0, magenta 99, yellow 0, and black 0) that would be one thing, because even thought this is really close to 100% magenta, it's still a unique ink color in the Pantone system. If somebody wanted to register a black like color such as Pantone 6 C (made of cyan 100, magenta 35, yellow 0, and black 100) that would be one thing, but to register just plain old 100% black would be ridiculous as well.
How about somebody just goes ahead and registers the RGB white also known as 255/255/255 or hexa # FFFFFF? Just because it can be done, it doesn't mean it should. I think some colors, especially primary ones that make the rest of the colors in the world, should be kept free.
And what about every company in the Netherlands who had already been using 100% magenta as their brand color? How are these companies affected by this T-Mobil hogging? It is one thing to register your logo which happens to be 100% magenta, so nobody can use your logo. But one very different thing to claim the primary color you use as yours, especially when that color existed way before cellular telephony even existed. By: macoROCKS on Feb 5, 08 | 4 Trends | 23 Comments |
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to be fair I was playing devil's advocate here. I actually agree with you, and think it's pretty naive for Deutche Telekom to try to trademark a standard colour (I'm in design so am well aware of CMYK / Pantone references). For what it's worth this will probably not get very far in terms of trademarking, as it will be deemed ineligible due to the precedent of use in other businesses and brands, and the lack of proprietary control in its 'creation'.
The irony of all this is that magenta (CMYK 0% 100% 0% 0%) is particularly crass and blunt as a block colour for design in my view, but hey, it's up to them I suppose... By: Ben Mainwaring on Feb 5, 08 | 0 Trends | 2 Comments |
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