Can Colors be Trademarked?

[Paul Housberg]

Well, no, they can't. Not exactly.

But, trademark and copyright issues have been a perennial topic of discussion on the Warm Board, so I thought I would share these links to a post I published on my blog and on Facebook about "trade dress". Curious to know if this changes your thinking about the issue:

My blog: http://www.glassproject.com/2012/11/22/ ... #more-2558

Or, for those who "do" Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/housberg?ref=hl

[Joyce Walters]

Thank you, Paul.
This was interesting content for my brain to mull over today.
Joyce

[Morganica]

Doesn't change my thinking, but in my experience the defense of color trademarks isn't that cut and dried. I once worked for a company that ran afoul of another company's branded color (ironically enough, T-mobile's magenta). We weren't competitors, but when they discovered we'd branded an extremely close magenta for a new product line, we got the C&D. We wound up substituting another color in everything from broadcast and print ads to keyrings and other tschotkes to the color palette in ALL of our PowerPoint slides. Cost us a very large fortune.

Companies that rely on a non-functional, trademarked color as part of their brand--especially if they're established, universally recognized brands--will go after anything that might appear to dilute the value of that brand. They might not prevail against you in court, but they can certainly make your life miserable (and cost you some time and money) in the meantime. Does that mean an artist can't use a trademarked color? Nope--it's covered under fair use. (although there are some appropriation/parody cases that get kinda interesting on that point)

If the company's IP attorney(s) have half a brain they won't go after obvious fair use situations, but the attorneys I've worked with feel obliged to defend against just about any obvious commercial usage, whether it's a competitor or not. If they don't, when a real violation occurs the court could decide they hadn't been "vigorously" protecting their trademark, and rule against them.

[Bert Weiss]

http://www.moma.org/collection/object.p ... t_id=80103
Yves Klein International Blue came to mind.