Lemonade Beats Deutsche Telekom In French Court Over Use Of The Color Magenta

from the when-life-gives-you-magenta dept

Last year we wrote about a New York insurance company called Lemonade being forced by a German court to cease using the color pink/magenta in its branding in Germany after a dispute with Deutsche Telekom, parent company of T-Mobile. See, DT has a long, long history of using insane trademarks its been granted for the color magenta to go after all kinds of other companies, whether they're actually using that same color or not, and regardless of whether they compete in the same marketplace or not. While Lemonade complied with the court, it then took two further steps. First, it released a Chrome browser extension that strips the color pink out of, well, everything in the user's browser. This was coupled with a #FreeThePink PR campaign. And the, for added measure, Lemonade set out in various European courts to invalidate any claim DT might have to the trademark for the color in the field of financial services.

Well, the first resolution of one of those cases is out and it's a full win for Lemonade. Note that much of the text in the quotes below is from a press release, but the factual aspects of it still stand.

Deutsche Telekom has owned the French trademark on the color pink, or magenta, in the field of financial services (known as ‘class 36’) since it registered this color-mark 25 years ago. No longer. In a ruling issued on December 15, 2020, French authorities found that “there is no evidence of genuine use of this mark for the contested services” by Deutsche Telekom, confirming that “the owner of the contested mark should therefore be deprived of his rights.”

“The French decision hopefully signals a turning point in the battle to stop trademark trolling by Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile,” said Daniel Schreiber, Lemonade CEO and cofounder. “In recent years DT has banned the use of pink by a technology blog in the US, an aspiring watchmaker seeking crowd-funding on Indiegogo, an invoice processor in Holland, a nine person IT shop in England. That’s nuts. When they tried to extend their monopoly over pink to the insurance industry, we felt it was time to fight back. If some brainiac at Deutsche Telekom had invented the color, their possessiveness would make sense. Absent that, the company’s actions just smack of corporate bully tactics, where legions of lawyers attempt to hog natural resources – in this case a primary color - that rightfully belong to everyone.”

Again, press releases quoting their own subjects in this case, but the points still stand. What's notable about this is two things. First, DT has gotten away with its bullying over the color magenta, largely successfully, chiefly because nobody ever fights back. As Schreiber notes above, this represents a very rare pushback instead. And, perhaps more importantly, Lemonade also notes that it's going to pursue this in other European markets as well.

The whole thing is monumentally dumb on the part of DT. To wield a trademark in an industry in which they do not participate in order to smack around small companies over the use of an extremely common color has nothing to do with how trademark laws are supposed to work. If ever there were a trademark bully crying out to get the tables turned on it, it sure is this one. And it's nice to see Lemonade has gotten its first win.

Filed Under: germany, magenta, trademark
Companies: deutsche telekom, lemonade, t-mobile

Trolling The Trademark Troll: Lemonade CEO Releases Chrome Extension To Remove Magenta From Websites

from the pink-out dept

You will recall that last month we discussed the latest iteration of T-Mobile's ongoing war to defend its trademark on the color magenta, as well as close variants of that color. While there are instances in which a particularly unique color or shade of color can be trademarked by a company, this case involved T-Mobile's parent company, Deutsche Telekom, bullying insurance company Lemonade out of using the color magenta in its branding. Given that the insurance and mobile phone industries are quite disparate, this never should have been a dispute, regardless of how ridiculous it is for a company to have exclusive rights to a color like magenta.

The folks at Lemonade appear to agree. While the company complied with Telekom's C&D, it also launched a PR blitz to highlight how insane this all is. First, Lemonade launched its #FreeThePink campaign to raised public awareness, and is taking its case to EUIPO to try and invalidate the trademark. But that wasn't all. The staff of Lemonade has now released a Chrome browser extension that, ahem, helps enact T-Mobile's vision of being the only purveyor of pink out there.

Pending the decision of European IP authorities, a Lemonade employee, Itamar Kestenbaum, wrote a Chrome extension called Pink-Out.

In fact, it's fair to say that Kestenbaum primarily wanted to showcase Deutsche Telekom's appalling behavior.

What the extension – essentially designed to troll the troll – does is strip all webpages, except those belonging to the German company itself, of “questionable shades.”

The app itself claims it helps those browsing the internet to be "pink-compliant", chiefly as a way to highlight the absurdity of all of this. In addition, the extension's page says that with a click of a button all pink is removed from the depiction of public websites, except those owned by T-Mobile. The page concludes with:

This extension is free -- like the color pink should be.

I'll give the company this: they're certainly making Lemonade out of the magenta-hued lemons T-Mobile has handed them.

Filed Under: chrome extension, magenta, troll. trademark
Companies: lemonade, t-mobile

The Color Magenta, Or How T-Mobile Thinks It Owns A General Color

from the ownership-society dept

You might think that throwing a word like "magenta" into the Techdirt search engine wouldn't get you any results. But you would be wrong about that and you'd be wrong entirely because of T-Mobile and its parent company Deutsche Telekom. See, Telekom has trademark rights in several countries for a very specific shade of magenta. And with those trademarks, Telekom rather enjoys threatening other businesses that dare to use anything that remotely looks like magenta in their trade dress, whether the color in question is actually magenta or not, and regardless of whether the other company is even a competitor or not.

And Telekom is still at it to the present. A German court has informed a startup insurance company out of New York called Lemonade that it must cease to use the shade of pink it's been using in it's branding for three years.

New York-based Lemonade is a 3-year-old company that lives completely online and mostly focuses on homeowners and renter’s insurance. The company uses a similar color to magenta — it says it's "pink" — in its marketing materials and its website. But Lemonade was told by German courts that it must cease using its color after launching its services in that country, which is also home to T-Mobile owner Deutsche Telekom. Although the ruling only applies in Germany, Lemonade says it fears the decision will set a precedent and expand to other jurisdictions such as the U.S. or Europe.

“If some brainiac at Deutsche Telekom had invented the color, their possessiveness would make sense,” Daniel Schreiber, CEO and co-founder of Lemonade, said in a statement. “Absent that, the company’s actions just smack of corporate bully tactics, where legions of lawyers attempt to hog natural resources – in this case a primary color—that rightfully belong to everyone.”

Here is the branding for Lemonade. Judge for yourself whether you think it is somehow confusing with T-Mobile.

Does that branding use a pinkish purple? Yes, yes it does. How close is that color to that trademarked by Telekom? I have no earthly idea, nor do I much care. T-Mobile provides cellular service, whereas Lemonade provides insurance services. Those aren't in the same market. And whatever distinction Telekom might claim that its magenta color has earned, that distinction certainly doesn't magically make any of this confusing.

And, separately, it's still rather galling that a company like Telekom can somehow own the rights to a color in a way that causes it to think nobody else, full stop, can use it. And, yet, Lemonade complied with the court's instructions. But not without making another move.

Although Lemonade has complied with the ruling by removing its pink color from marketing materials in Germany, it’s also trying to turn the legal matter into an opportunity. The company today began throwing some shade in social media under the hashtag “#FreeThePink,” though a quick check on Twitter shows it’s gained little traction thus far: Schreiber, the company’s CEO, holds the top tweet under “#FreeThePink” with 13 retweets and 42 likes.

Lemonade also filed a motion today with the European Union Intellectual Property Office, or EUIPO, to invalidate Deutsche Telekom’s magenta trademark.

It would be absolutely delicious if Lemonade ended up getting Telekom's trademark invalidated. Free the pink.

Filed Under: magenta, trademark
Companies: deutsche telekom, lemonade, t-mobile