No Magenta for You! T-Mobile Sees Red Over Magenta
Last week Deutsche Telekom, owners of the global T-Mobile brand, sent the website Engadget a late birthday present: a hand-delivered letter direct from their German legal department, requesting the prompt discontinuation of the use of the color magenta on Engadget Mobile. However, rather than gaining cooperation, T-Mobile has generated a host of unintended consequences.
Engadget promptly posted the threatening legal letter, which inspired other websites to temporarily add magenta to their logos in solidarity. T-Mobile spokespeople backed away from the letter, suggesting it was just their way of opening a dialogue.
Then, emboldened Engadget tweaked T-Mobile by modifying the logo in question to show what they could do if they really intended to infringe.
Berkman’s Citizen Media Law Project has the whole story.
While this tactic seems overly aggressive, or just downright stupid, there is a possible cultural difference in play. As I recall, Europe allows “colour registration,” which may have given T-Mobile’s legal team the impression that they could simply claim rights to magenta in the tech space globally. Clearly, in this case, they should not have tried to do that.
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