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posted by janrinok on Friday November 08 2019, @05:07AM   Printer-friendly
from the that's-our-colour dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1337

A German court has told startup insurer Lemonade to stop using the color magenta in marketing after an objection from T-Mobile

Startup insurance provider Lemonade is trying to make the best of a sour situation after T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom claimed it owns the exclusive rights to the color magenta.

New York-based Lemonade is a 3-year-old company that lives completely online and mostly focuses on homeowners and renter's insurance. The company uses a similar color to magenta — it says it's "pink" —

But Lemonade was told by German courts that it must cease using its color after launching its services in that country, which is also home to T-Mobile owner Deutsche Telekom. Although the ruling only applies in Germany, Lemonade says it fears the decision will set a precedent and expand to other jurisdictions such as the U.S. or Europe.

"If some brainiac at Deutsche Telekom had invented the color, their possessiveness would make sense," Daniel Schreiber, CEO and co-founder of Lemonade, said in a statement. "Absent that, the company's actions just smack of corporate bully tactics, where legions of lawyers attempt to hog natural resources – in this case a primary color—that rightfully belong to everyone."

[...] Lemonade also filed a motion today with the European Union Intellectual Property Office, or EUIPO, to invalidate Deutsche Telekom's magenta trademark.

Lemonade also issued a color chart ([pictured]) with which it asserts are the hues at issue.

"Here in the U.S., we do recognize trademark rights in colors, but they are not easy to acquire," says Ira E. Silfin, a trademark attorney with Mandelbaum Silfin Economou. "When they are acquired they are fairly narrow.  So, everyone knows UPS is brown, but that's only for shipping and logistics, not sports such as Cleveland Browns or anything else.  If T-Mobile tried to stop an insurance company—or a bakery or a cosmetics company—from using their pink-magenta color in the U.S., they would have a pretty hard time."


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  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday November 08 2019, @08:57AM (4 children)

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Friday November 08 2019, @08:57AM (#917809) Homepage
    But that's absurd, as Fluke kit wasn't even yellow, it was brownish grey. Then they put the (removable) (orangey) yellow drop-protection cases on them. Then they adopted a colour scheme which implied you had the drop-protection case on, but they still preserved their brownish grey front. I had a cheap-ass chinese multimeter in yellow two decades before I even saw a non-brownish-grey Fluke.

    Absurd trademark. Fuck Fluke.
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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday November 08 2019, @03:56PM (1 child)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday November 08 2019, @03:56PM (#917901) Journal

    That's about how I remember things. First came the dark case, and I still have a first gen 77 in my toolbox to verify it. Then generation 2 came with the yellow shock cushion slipper. Sometime between Gen 2 and Gen 3 Fluke started making their cases for some meters in yellow. The Fluke 77 Gen IV is the hard yellow case, and I suspect everything they sell now is in hard yellow cases.

    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday November 09 2019, @12:27AM

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Saturday November 09 2019, @12:27AM (#918111) Homepage
      I've got a 77 mark II with a big chunky slip on/off orangy-yellow (I'm colourblind) ruggedised casing. Browny grey is the meter. Browny grey is Fluke!
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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday November 08 2019, @04:11PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday November 08 2019, @04:11PM (#917916) Journal

    Errr, ummmm, wait a second. Was there a gray slip on cushion for Gen 2 meters? I recall seeing a darker colored cushion of a meter, at some time. Not sure if it was a Fluke cushion, or maybe it was a third-party thing. Maybe even it was from a different brand of meter. The only thing I'm sure of, is seeing a Gen 1 or Gen 2 Fluke 77 in a cushion that was near the same color as the Fluke. Definitely not yellow.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 08 2019, @04:14PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 08 2019, @04:14PM (#917917)

    Absurd trademark. Fuck Fluke.

    Really? I think that's uncalled for in this instance. It's one thing to be mad at how aggressively US customs enforces trademarks like this, but "Fuck Fluke?"

    After US customs seized Sparkfun's multimeters, Fluke made things right [sparkfun.com] by offering Sparkfun, free of charge, a shipment of genuine Fluke meters, and suggested they could sell them to recoup the value of the lost shipment or give them away. Sparkfun accepted the offer and subsequently donated them for educational uses. Stay classy, Fluke.