Because I am all contrary like that

[maradydd]

BoingBoing reports that Cadbury, the people who bring you those gooey creme eggs at Easter, have trademarked the colour purple. Presumably this is the specific shade that they use, as a later commenter points out that "UPS brown" is Pantone shade 0607298.

When I was working at the Houston Press, the art department had an enormous poster of Pantone shades -- "enormous" as in "it filled most of a wall". News like this makes me wish that I still had access to such a thing, because I would so put together an archive noting down the exact shades which correspond to "Barbie pink", "G.I. Joe green", "McDonald's yellow" and the like.

Comments

[slithytove.livejournal.com]

Surely the colors are prior art?

If not, I want to copyright C-sharp. And the emotion of 'wistfulness'. And all geometric figures that have more than three but fewer than five sides.

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

Well, this is trademark, but still. I seem to recall that certain sequences of tones can in fact be registered as trade dress -- the Intel "ding-ding-ding-ding" being one example.

[slithytove.livejournal.com]

Oh, sure, and sequences of words can be trademarked: "What can Brown do for you?", for example. But UPS can't trademark the word 'what', the word 'can', the word 'brown', and so forth, and spew cease-and-desist orders if anyone else uses them. I don't see how it's any more reasonable to be able to trademark a single color.

[q-pheevr.livejournal.com]

They're gonna have to fight Alice Walker for it.

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

That was my first reaction too.