6 ms·

Color: The Next Limited Resource?

84 points by bootload 17y ago

jrockway 17y ago
Anyone can claim anything they want. I can say the topcolor of HN is "jrockway green" (because mine is green). It doesn't matter though, because nobody else has to call it that, and I can't stop anyone else from using it. (I can send you a C&D, of course, but you can just ignore it because you can't own a color.)
- mtts 17y ago
  Read the article again. Companies can in fact trademark a specific color and they do - T-Mobile magenta is specifically mentioned. If T-Mobile magenta shows up in a photograph or a painting, that is, of course, not a problem, but if it shows up in another corporate logo (the article specifically mentions Engadget Mobile), T-Mobile gets to sue and wins.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - jrockway 17y ago
    Engadget Mobile's logo is still the same color, so I don't think T-Mobile sued and won. They simply mailed a nastygram, which anyone can do for any (or no) reason.
    - kristiandupont 17y ago
      Orange did sue EasyMobile over color. I am not sure if they won or not, but obviously they must have felt they had enough of a case to go to court.
dkokelley 17y ago
If T-Mobile can trademark Magenta in the mobile space, I would like to trademark vowels. In fact, my new startup, AEIOU(Y), works in the audio-engineering space, so would all actors, TV producers, musicians, and everyone else who records sound, please refrain from using vowels. We don't want our customers to confuse us with your recordings. Being serious, I understand the need to protect your brand from people who would capitalize on the trust and recognition the brand has built. From what I understand, with trademark law definitions are often based on a 'reasonable person's' potential deception (eg. would a reasonable person mistake your generic kleenex for brand name Kleenex?). All other things held constant, it would appear that the mental capacity of a reasonable person has declined.
- mtts 17y ago
  The definition of what a reasonable person is, seems somewhat variable. The law holds that a reasonable person is too stupid to see the difference between a T-Mobile logo done up in magenta and an Engadget one but at the same time is smart enough, apparently, to reason that Tesco's "Lincolnshire sausages" are merely made in "typical Lincolnshire fashion" (whatever that means) using pork sourced from the Netherlands, Germany and Poland.
  - lucumo 17y ago
    > The law holds that a reasonable person is too stupid to see the difference between a T-Mobile logo done up in magenta and an Engadget one I think you must take into account that logo colours are often used in other aspects of corporate appearance. The colour may be used as a band across an envelope, a letter, or an ad. Done well, you really only need to see that coloured band to know who's sending it.
    - jacquesm 17y ago
      That's exactly why this shouldn't be allowed. There is a very small number colours that the eye can readily tell apart, if we allow big corporations to claim these the rest of us will be communicating in black and white. If it is a complete colorscheme then I have less of a problem with it. It's funny how this seems to be a phone company thing, in NL KPN (the old telco monopolist) has a claim on light green.
      - lucumo 17y ago
        I don't entirely disagree. But it's an oversimplification to state that the law thinks users are too stupid to see the difference in logos if the colour is the same, as GGP did.
        jacquesm 17y ago
        There is actually some good proof supporting the GGGP's point. Shady marketeers will use a completely different logo in the exact same shade of colour to fool people in to thinking they're dealing with the phone company when they send out bills for inclusion in bogus directories. It works, it's a simple as that. But that should mean to me that if you don't want any confusion that you should pick a black-and-white scheme and force the customer to read instead of using legal tricks to monopolize part of the spectrum.
natmaster 17y ago
This seems like a good example of what's wrong with intellectual property laws.
- dbz 17y ago
  Oh gosh. Soon I bet people are going to start claiming individual words.
  - drusenko 17y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genericized_trademark http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genericized_trademark "Where a trademark is used generically, a trademark owner may need to take special proactive measures to retain exclusive rights to the trademark. Xerox corporation was able to generally prevent the genericide of its core trademark through an extensive public relations campaign advising consumers to "photocopy" instead of "xerox" documents."
nopassrecover 17y ago
Interestingly during a recent trip to SF I was reminded of Three Australia everytime I saw T-Mobile's advertising. The Coca-Cola red/Cadbury purple/Starbucks green/Virgin red are probably more well-known associations though. Incidentally, the visualisations in this article are pretty cool.
quellhorst 17y ago
A company can sue you for anything. Don't be intimidated in your color choices. The only way they win is if you don't fight!
- jamesbritt 17y ago
  "The only way they win is if you don't fight!" The only way? How about if they overpower you in an expensive, drawn-out court battle. Not only is the law stupid, but in the US the process to resist it is seriously flawed.
  - quellhorst 17y ago
    The trick is that you don't hire a lawyer. You defend yourself and they are the ones getting all of the invoices from expensive lawyers. There are also things you can to do cause them to have higher legal fees. Books from Nolo are very valuable when you are defending yourself.
    - fnid 17y ago
      I agree. I always wondered why lawsuits are inherently expensive. If they are bringing the case, they pay the court costs. You don't have to pay attorneys. Life is about learning and experience and what better way than to be taken on a ride through a new system? Take it as an opportunity to build a legal defense information system, then sell it and make a bundle off the experience you gain.
      - jamesbritt 17y ago
        It depends on the stakes. If this is merely a case of C&D, and if you lose you just stop doing whatever it was you were doing, the risk is nil. If there is a claim for damages or restitution or whatever, and you may be out of pocket if you lose, you need to weigh the cost of legal help versus the risk of losing.
    - jamesbritt 17y ago
      And if you lose, and there are damages and fines? I guess I'm skeptical that simply being right is enough to triumph in court against a determine company with a lot of money and little conscience.
shaddi 17y ago
This article seems to defeat its own point. The visual with companies' logos on the visible spectrum (http://www.flickr.com/photos/philgyford/56867986/sizes/o/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/philgyford/56867986/sizes/o/) shows that multiple companies can claim the same colors with no problems. I don't confuse IBM and Intel, Barclay's and Prudential, or Ford and GM simply because they occupy similar locations in the color space. This is an interesting article but I don't think we're going to deplete the color space the way we're going to deplete the IPv4 address space. People and companies have been using distinctive colors for a very long time, and we've managed to avoid this problem quite well.
Shana 17y ago
Actually, This article is impossible. A LAB* colorspace would suggest that color is not uniform at all, and we have large perceptual issues with it. Metamerism and all. There is both infinite Chromaticity and Infinite Luminance from a variety of directions to a point. You get an infinite amount of colors... So what???? Just because We've decided to use the Pantone system to simply things doesn't mean a Pantone Swatch looks the same in all lights (Luminance). Within each swatch, there are infinite subcolors. So yeah, it's impossible to copyright a magenta- although you can probably specify which Pantone magenta for the sake of certain pigment specifications you mean, you can't trademark magenta. There are infinite magentas... An sRGB or Adobe RGB colorspace is just a specific cut of LAB*, since there is a specified singular white-point rather than a fluctuating relative luminance. You'll still get infinite color problems with both, as well as Metamerism (different colors via spectrum that look the same to the human eye) So Trademark all you want. I'll stick your magenta on a yellow background. It's now a different magenta because of perceptual issues.
delackner 17y ago
I was particularly struck by the passing reference to the (unknown to me) International Klein Blue, a color made by and then patented by Yves Klein, a pure blue pigment suspended in clear resin, a color that cannot be experienced on a screen or page, but only by seeing the real thing. An experience that you have to HAVE in person, that cannot be approximated online. A bit of google and wiki later, I read the surreal ending to his life: "[Klein] suffered a first heart attack whilst watching the film Mondo Cane at the Cannes Film Festival[...] Two more heart attacks followed, the second of which killed him on 6 June 1962. His son, Yves, was born a few months later in Nice...[His son] grew up to study architecture, design, cybernetics theory of systems, and Fine Arts sculpture. He went on to create robotized sculptures." One thing leads to another and before I know it I have read a series of things that together induced the sensation of having experienced a moving art installation.

84 points by bootload 17y ago

Anyone can claim anything they want. I can say the topcolor of HN is "jrockway green" (because mine is green). It doesn't matter though, because nobody else has to call it that, and I can't stop anyone else from using it. (I can send you a C&D, of course, but you can just ignore it because you can't own a color.)

mtts 17y ago
Read the article again. Companies can in fact trademark a specific color and they do - T-Mobile magenta is specifically mentioned. If T-Mobile magenta shows up in a photograph or a painting, that is, of course, not a problem, but if it shows up in another corporate logo (the article specifically mentions Engadget Mobile), T-Mobile gets to sue and wins.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- jrockway 17y ago
  Engadget Mobile's logo is still the same color, so I don't think T-Mobile sued and won. They simply mailed a nastygram, which anyone can do for any (or no) reason.
  - kristiandupont 17y ago
    Orange did sue EasyMobile over color. I am not sure if they won or not, but obviously they must have felt they had enough of a case to go to court.

dkokelley 17y ago

If T-Mobile can trademark Magenta in the mobile space, I would like to trademark vowels. In fact, my new startup, AEIOU(Y), works in the audio-engineering space, so would all actors, TV producers, musicians, and everyone else who records sound, please refrain from using vowels. We don't want our customers to confuse us with your recordings. Being serious, I understand the need to protect your brand from people who would capitalize on the trust and recognition the brand has built. From what I understand, with trademark law definitions are often based on a 'reasonable person's' potential deception (eg. would a reasonable person mistake your generic kleenex for brand name Kleenex?). All other things held constant, it would appear that the mental capacity of a reasonable person has declined.

mtts 17y ago
The definition of what a reasonable person is, seems somewhat variable. The law holds that a reasonable person is too stupid to see the difference between a T-Mobile logo done up in magenta and an Engadget one but at the same time is smart enough, apparently, to reason that Tesco's "Lincolnshire sausages" are merely made in "typical Lincolnshire fashion" (whatever that means) using pork sourced from the Netherlands, Germany and Poland.
- lucumo 17y ago
  > The law holds that a reasonable person is too stupid to see the difference between a T-Mobile logo done up in magenta and an Engadget one I think you must take into account that logo colours are often used in other aspects of corporate appearance. The colour may be used as a band across an envelope, a letter, or an ad. Done well, you really only need to see that coloured band to know who's sending it.
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    That's exactly why this shouldn't be allowed. There is a very small number colours that the eye can readily tell apart, if we allow big corporations to claim these the rest of us will be communicating in black and white. If it is a complete colorscheme then I have less of a problem with it. It's funny how this seems to be a phone company thing, in NL KPN (the old telco monopolist) has a claim on light green.
    - lucumo 17y ago
      I don't entirely disagree. But it's an oversimplification to state that the law thinks users are too stupid to see the difference in logos if the colour is the same, as GGP did.
      - jacquesm 17y ago
        There is actually some good proof supporting the GGGP's point. Shady marketeers will use a completely different logo in the exact same shade of colour to fool people in to thinking they're dealing with the phone company when they send out bills for inclusion in bogus directories. It works, it's a simple as that. But that should mean to me that if you don't want any confusion that you should pick a black-and-white scheme and force the customer to read instead of using legal tricks to monopolize part of the spectrum.

natmaster 17y ago

This seems like a good example of what's wrong with intellectual property laws.

dbz 17y ago
Oh gosh. Soon I bet people are going to start claiming individual words.
- drusenko 17y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genericized_trademark http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genericized_trademark "Where a trademark is used generically, a trademark owner may need to take special proactive measures to retain exclusive rights to the trademark. Xerox corporation was able to generally prevent the genericide of its core trademark through an extensive public relations campaign advising consumers to "photocopy" instead of "xerox" documents."

nopassrecover 17y ago

Interestingly during a recent trip to SF I was reminded of Three Australia everytime I saw T-Mobile's advertising. The Coca-Cola red/Cadbury purple/Starbucks green/Virgin red are probably more well-known associations though. Incidentally, the visualisations in this article are pretty cool.

quellhorst 17y ago

A company can sue you for anything. Don't be intimidated in your color choices. The only way they win is if you don't fight!

jamesbritt 17y ago
"The only way they win is if you don't fight!" The only way? How about if they overpower you in an expensive, drawn-out court battle. Not only is the law stupid, but in the US the process to resist it is seriously flawed.
- quellhorst 17y ago
  The trick is that you don't hire a lawyer. You defend yourself and they are the ones getting all of the invoices from expensive lawyers. There are also things you can to do cause them to have higher legal fees. Books from Nolo are very valuable when you are defending yourself.
  - fnid 17y ago
    I agree. I always wondered why lawsuits are inherently expensive. If they are bringing the case, they pay the court costs. You don't have to pay attorneys. Life is about learning and experience and what better way than to be taken on a ride through a new system? Take it as an opportunity to build a legal defense information system, then sell it and make a bundle off the experience you gain.
    - jamesbritt 17y ago
      It depends on the stakes. If this is merely a case of C&D, and if you lose you just stop doing whatever it was you were doing, the risk is nil. If there is a claim for damages or restitution or whatever, and you may be out of pocket if you lose, you need to weigh the cost of legal help versus the risk of losing.
  - jamesbritt 17y ago
    And if you lose, and there are damages and fines? I guess I'm skeptical that simply being right is enough to triumph in court against a determine company with a lot of money and little conscience.

shaddi 17y ago

This article seems to defeat its own point. The visual with companies' logos on the visible spectrum (http://www.flickr.com/photos/philgyford/56867986/sizes/o/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/philgyford/56867986/sizes/o/) shows that multiple companies can claim the same colors with no problems. I don't confuse IBM and Intel, Barclay's and Prudential, or Ford and GM simply because they occupy similar locations in the color space. This is an interesting article but I don't think we're going to deplete the color space the way we're going to deplete the IPv4 address space. People and companies have been using distinctive colors for a very long time, and we've managed to avoid this problem quite well.

Shana 17y ago

Actually, This article is impossible. A LAB* colorspace would suggest that color is not uniform at all, and we have large perceptual issues with it. Metamerism and all. There is both infinite Chromaticity and Infinite Luminance from a variety of directions to a point. You get an infinite amount of colors... So what???? Just because We've decided to use the Pantone system to simply things doesn't mean a Pantone Swatch looks the same in all lights (Luminance). Within each swatch, there are infinite subcolors. So yeah, it's impossible to copyright a magenta- although you can probably specify which Pantone magenta for the sake of certain pigment specifications you mean, you can't trademark magenta. There are infinite magentas... An sRGB or Adobe RGB colorspace is just a specific cut of LAB*, since there is a specified singular white-point rather than a fluctuating relative luminance. You'll still get infinite color problems with both, as well as Metamerism (different colors via spectrum that look the same to the human eye) So Trademark all you want. I'll stick your magenta on a yellow background. It's now a different magenta because of perceptual issues.

delackner 17y ago

I was particularly struck by the passing reference to the (unknown to me) International Klein Blue, a color made by and then patented by Yves Klein, a pure blue pigment suspended in clear resin, a color that cannot be experienced on a screen or page, but only by seeing the real thing. An experience that you have to HAVE in person, that cannot be approximated online. A bit of google and wiki later, I read the surreal ending to his life: "[Klein] suffered a first heart attack whilst watching the film Mondo Cane at the Cannes Film Festival[...] Two more heart attacks followed, the second of which killed him on 6 June 1962. His son, Yves, was born a few months later in Nice...[His son] grew up to study architecture, design, cybernetics theory of systems, and Fine Arts sculpture. He went on to create robotized sculptures." One thing leads to another and before I know it I have read a series of things that together induced the sensation of having experienced a moving art installation.