The Law Colour: The next limited resource?

[fairdinkum]

Very interesting article about how some companies are essentially copyrighting colours for themselves to the exclusion of other companies.

http://sixrevisions.com/web_design/color-the-next-limited-resource/

The color palette is shrinking. It could affect the foundation of design for everything from websites to fashion. The fate of businesses and billions of dollars ride on choosing the right one. We’ll take a look at how color is becoming the next limited resource.

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If there is anyone that could say they own color, it would be Pantone. They have a monopoly on it in the truest sense. Every color you have ever seen used has been indexed and named by Pantone.

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The most interesting and polemic story of a brand buying and claiming a color space is with T-Mobile (Deutsche Telekom). They have trademarked the color magenta.

So now there is 'Jay-Z Blue', a hue which graphic designers around the world know not to use when designing stuff for the music industry (unless they are working for Jay-Z, of course).

I found the article interesting, anyway.

 

[Chief]

These trademarks are within the industries they operate, which is in some ways fair.

The problem comes, in my opinion, when you have a company like easyJet which then expands to car rentals, hotel bookings, internet cafes and so on. They try to take 'their brand' with them into these new industries and bully out smaller operators.

One example was when 'easy' went into the hotel business, and sued the owner of the web site easihotel.com claiming infringement, when that site had been around for more than two years before easyhotel. Money talks.