Comments on: Color: The Next Limited Resource?

By: vzwpix.com

vzwpix.com — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 09:35:38 +0000

They should stop it now before it gets out of hand.

By: Imokon

Imokon — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 21:04:21 +0000

You know that’s funny because Suicide Girls tried to pull the trademark right on pink and lost. So it’s funny to me that T-Mobile gets away with it.

And actually, random fact, you can’t trademark scents period. They only trademark the colors and designs of the packaging.

By: Andrei

Andrei — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:31:57 +0000

This will not hold.
By the time they register half the brands it will be chromatic chaos.

By: Carla

Carla — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 01:51:26 +0000

First of all they can own the color which is a particular combination code of numbers C-M-Y-K etc. Tiffany Blue is a good example, it, like the others above, are custom blended colors that cannot be and will not be sold by Pantone to anyone else-they are custom mixed and named, I would also imagine that they trademark their custom color name to avoid infringement as well, if someone created a jewelry company and used similar shade of Tiffany blue but a few digits off in the combo they would sue because it is similar and in the same field. But if someone had a machine shop and wanted a similar shade close to Tiffany blue first of all Pantone wouldn’t even have it available to reference from, but it could be figured out by perhaps another color agency and probably used by another industry without incident. Remember their are a million different combinations and hues etc to the extent we can measure it.
But this discussion leads to other similar intellectual concerns…companies and people can own real estate on the Moon, and Monsanto can own ALL the rights to ALL GMO corn to monopolize revenue on the grain industry, and whats next patenting H20 and O2 so we’ll have to pay a royalty for utilizing them also? Credit card companies do the same thing they rely on credit bureaus to report bad behavior to, so that they can can then in return use the negative information they provided to the bureau about you, against you by declining or charging you higher fees. Companies buy into the problem and solutions now. “He who cureth can maketh ill.”
It also isn’t much different than pharmaceutical companies patenting strains of viruses so that they can build vaccines and drugs around them…I shudder to think of the day when some who has an identifiable strain of cancer has to pay a royalty for having it, in addition to paying for the curative drug itself-if its even curable, and by the way they know what causes cancer in the last 100 yrs-pollution from chemicals-its obvious-nobody’s chemical companies are stopping that are they? No because someone makes money off of it.
At the end of the day, all of these companies only have one thing left to make money off of and that’s intellectual property. So while everybody is worried about recycling and CO2 and the planet overheating the powers that be have been patenting and cataloguing every last living virus, disease and plant and chemical in last 100 yrs in order to make money off of it in the future…Really…just think when will those in charge have enough money?
Happy 2010 y’all, welcome to the future!

By: btorbo

btorbo — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 21:44:51 +0000

Trademarking color? That’s just downright retarded. I’ll still use magenta (or every other color known to man for that matter) every day of the week and twice on sundays. Come on, it’s COLOR we’re talking about. Slowly Suck Some Seriously Sour Socks, T-M.

By: Linus Bohman

Linus Bohman — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 08:26:24 +0000

While I don’t share the zeal, it’s a well-written article. I wish you would’ve clarified the Magenta case better like other commenters have pointed out. Intellectual rights is an interesting and difficult topic, and even more so for designers. Many want to protect the work they do while still retaining as much creative freedom as possible. A split duality, I think.

By: Doug S.

Doug S. — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 01:40:16 +0000

Firstly, There are 15.6 million HEX values so we screen people are safe for a very, very long time.

Secondly, I give it a few more years before someone says, “You can’t own a color.” and the issue is solved that way.

Honestly, why are we getting bothered?

By: Javier Mateos

Javier Mateos — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 01:39:02 +0000

Holy camole. We should start the concept “CMYK-Peace”… hmmm I think I’ll trademark this concept! :)

By: mrcommenter

mrcommenter — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 02:10:37 +0000

I slapped my knee after I read that……. oh not because it was knee slapping funny, but because I saw a bug crawling up my leg. Get it?

By: mrmment

mrmment — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 20:00:33 +0000

I vote to get rid of green. Way overrated and who really needs it when you have yellow and blue…