Magistrates malign magenta monopoly

We reported earlier about T-Mobile / Deutsche Telekom’s attempts to assert rather far-flung trademarks rights over the color magenta.  Now it appears that at least one tribunal has declined to see the world with those-colored glasses, as Engadget reports:

Well, would you look at that — our good friend Deutsche Telekom seems to have lost a lawsuit it filed against rival European wireless carrier Telia over its use of the color magenta in its logo. The Danish Eastern Regional High Court today ruled that Telia and DT don’t compete directly in the Danish market and that Telia isn’t using the same magenta shade, leading the court to overturn an injunction DT sought against Telia’s use of the color. On top of that, the court further ruled that Deutsche Telekom has to fork over 1.5M kroner ($316,188) in court costs and attorneys’ fees to Telia, which probably stings a little more than having to share a color. Of course, now that magenta is the People’s Color, maybe DT should look into playing a little nicer, don’t you think?

Yes, maybe!  Don’t miss that fee award to the defendant either. That’s a lot of Danish.

Um, why is it again that we don’t have fee shifting in trademark cases here?

What’s that you say? We … kind of do?

Really.

(Hat tip to David Milch of Perpetual Licensing.)

Originally posted 2008-05-30 10:13:38. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Ron Coleman