Techdirt is crying foul (again) and this time, wrapping the “trademark bully” mantle around the magenta-colored neck of the T-Mobile brand for enforcing its color trademark against OXY.
While I certainly don’t have the details of the dispute (and it appears Techdirt doesn’t either), and OXY hasn’t produced the actual demand correspondence, given the distinctiveness of T-Mobile’s identity and branding, it’s not surprising it’s viewed as an asset worthy of protection.
What is surprising (to me) is that I was unable to find any single color trademark registrations for “magenta” on the USPTO’s Principal Register owned by Deutsche Telekom, the parent company of the T-Mobile brand — only a pair of Supplemental Registrations (here and here).
With more than a dozen years of prominent use of its “magenta” branding, you’d think it is long past due for an upgrade to the Principal Register. It also seems to me that having a Principal Registration for a claimed mark should go a long way to quieting trademark bullying skeptics.
Then again, maybe not. Some view the ownership of a single color as a trademark as ridiculous, dumb, and silly. So, having the USPTO validate such a claim with registration would probably not quiet the concerns of those folks.
Admittedly, sometimes the single color registration issued by the USPTO needs trimming, but single color trademarks have been legally validated for more than three decades now (ask Owens Corning what pink means to their consumers). Color trademarks aren’t going away any time soon, so long as they perform the three critical purposes of a trademark: (1) Identifying the goods or services at issue; (2) distinguishing the goods or services from those of others; and (3) indicating the source of the goods or services.
As I’ve said before and written before here, while so-called trademark bullying does exist, it is frequently a misunderstood and misapplied pejorative label, based on a heavy dose of skepticism and belief of what the law should be, not what the law actually protects.
“What moves the needle on most of these stories from ‘trademark-gone-too-far’ to ‘trademark bullying’ is that these actions tend to be brought against other groups that aren’t even operating within the same industry as the offended. That’s key in trademark disputes where, in most cases, the two parties must be competing with one another for infringement to occur.”
As loyal DuetsBlog readers appreciate, for trademark infringement, i.e., likelihood of confusion to exist, it is black-letter-law that no competition between the parties is required, only likelihood of confusion (based on a balancing of multiple factors) — and not only likely confusion as to source, but also as to sponsorship, approval, affiliation, or some other sort of connection.
So, the lack of direct competition is not determinative of a likelihood of confusion analysis. And, Techdirt and OXY’s focus on the lack of direct competition actually misses the point and oversimplifies the analysis: “We are making a smartwatch – nothing that would eventually compete with Telekom’s products and services.”
OXY’s own marketing materials admit the complementary nature of their smart watch to a smart phone: “OXY is an Android running Smartwatch that is fully customizable and works with virtually any phone.” T-Mobile sells lots of smart phones, and I’d expect that selling smart watches is well within their natural zone of expansion. If so, it’s hard to blame T-Mobile for its concern.
My hope for 2016 is that we’ll see fewer trademark color calamity cliches; the so-called “trademark bullying” mantle will be much more carefully draped; and uninformed skepticism about the validity of trademark rights in single colors will subside.
Instead, hopefully we’ll see much more well-informed focus on the virtually unlimited subject matter of trademarks that identify, distinguish and indicate source, and we’ll look forward to seeing an intelligent application of the likelihood of confusion factors and standard.
How about you, what do you hope for in 2016?