The Color Purple... Trademarked Again

from the didn't-we-just-do-this? dept

Wait, didn't we just have a story about some knitting needle company trademarking the color purple? Indeed, we did, but apparently others are doing the same thing as well. Over in the UK, there was actually a legal battle going on over this, with Cadbury trying to trademark the color purple, and competitor Nestle trying to oppose the efforts. However, the UK Intellectual Property Office apparently has no problem with trademarking colors and gave Cadbury the official trademark.

Nestle argued that a colour cannot be trademarked because colours are widely used in trade and purple was commonly in use by other companies when Cadbury applied for the trademark.

The registrar came down in favour of Cadbury, citing the results of research showing that consumers strongly associated the colour purple with Dairy Milk, which was the best-selling chocolate bar in the U.K. at the time of the application in 2004.

The reasoning behind all of this is a little bizarre. Just think for a second, if you were unfamiliar with the details of trademark law and realized that there was a legal dispute over who owned the color purple. How do you read the following two sentences and not wonder why anyone would ever be bothering about the ridiculous idea of trying to own a color.

The registrar came down in favour of Cadbury, citing the results of research showing that consumers strongly associated the colour purple with Dairy Milk, which was the best-selling chocolate bar in the U.K. at the time of the application in 2004.

Nestle scored some concessions. The registrar ruled that Cadbury had not shown that its use of the colour purple in relation to chocolate assortments was strong enough to be included.

It just feels like absolutely everyone involved in that dispute could have been doing some kind of work that actually mattered, rather than arguing over this.

Filed Under: color, purple, trademark
Companies: cadbury, nestle