Copyrights and trade marks

[whole diary]

[Western Pathfinder]

On my last trip to London last week I noticed that the green paint was being splashed about at Parkway and also at Swindon .

[TonyK]

Has the colour been made subject to copyright, does anyone know? Sounds daft, but it happens, even if it is questionable in intellectual property law.

[Rhydgaled]

Has the colour been made subject to copyright, does anyone know? Sounds daft, but it happens, even if it is questionable in intellectual property law.

I think I heard the other day that parcel delivery firm UPS had trademarked their brown vans. If I recall correctly, trademarks only apply within the same industry, so a TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) could use UPS's brown on a train livery if they want but only UPS may use the colour on a delivery van (I'm not a lawer, but there was a lecture or two on copywrite, patents and tradmarks in my MEng course at university). Therefore, if GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) have applied for brand protection of the green they use, it is probably trademark protection and thus there would probably be nothing to stop, for example, a bus company using Great Western Green, but other TOCs couldn't use it.

[lordgoata]

Trademarks apply to the segments/markets they are applied to.

If UPS trademarked their brown on vans, trains, bikes and hovercraft, then those are the segments that would be covered. If they applied for only vans, then it would only be vans.

But if I recall, the segments are not that specific, I think it's just Transport, for example.

I didn't think you could trademark colours, I thought it was only words and logos, but you could have a design patent on the colour scheme, buts its been a long time since I did any trademark applications 

[TonyK]

I think the overarching principle is that of confusion. If an ordinary man on the Clapham omnibus could be led to believe he was obtaining a service from company A because of the particular colour or other design feature of their product or vehicle, but was in fact tricked into obtaining the same service from company B because of their similar colouring, company A could sue if it had protected that scheme for its own use.

[stuving]

I didn't think you could trademark colours, I thought it was only words and logos, but you could have a design patent on the colour scheme, buts its been a long time since I did any trademark applications 

A quick look shows that UPS claim the colour brown in their list of US trade marks, but I can't find any claim of a colour in any of their (many) UK^▸ (United Kingdom) registrations. However, they now own all Lynx's marks, and some of those include a colour as an aspect of the mark - and the obvious one of those is Red Star:

"Mark Description/Limitation
    The applicant claims the colours red, black and white as an element of the mark."

[Bmblbzzz]

The colour green has been trademarked by BP^» (Beyond Petroleum (Former name - British Petroleum) - home page) ^ but that's for petrol stations.

[Tim]

Has the colour been made subject to copyright, does anyone know? Sounds daft, but it happens, even if it is questionable in intellectual property law.

A colour wouldn't be made subject to copyright.  It might be possible to register a colour as a trade mark.  BP^» (Beyond Petroleum (Former name - British Petroleum) - home page) green, Cadbury's purple being some examples.  This practice is not questionable in intellectual property law. it is deliberately provided for in the Trade Mark Directive and the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) Act. 

It is not easy to trademark a colour and to be successful you would need good evidence of distinctiveness, ie evidence (typically survey data) that the public associates the colour with your brand.  Where there is strong association you might get registration although obviously only for the goods and services for which their is evidence of distinctiveness.

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) green has nowhere near the level of distinctiveness needed to be registered as a trade mark.  If it was used consistently for a number of years then maybe it would reach the threshold (as original GWR cream and chocolate brown may have done) 

 

[TonyK]

Much better explanation than mine - forget copyright, remember trade mark!

As an aside, during my brief study of law I once asked a senior lecturer over a beer what was the most lucrative specialism. "Maritime, then intellectual property", he said. That was around 1990, and I dare say the order has since been reversed.

[stuving]

A colour wouldn't be made subject to copyright.  It might be possible to register a colour as a trade mark.  BP^» (Beyond Petroleum (Former name - British Petroleum) - home page) green, Cadbury's purple being some examples.  This practice is not questionable in intellectual property law. it is deliberately provided for in the Trade Mark Directive and the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) Act. 

It is not easy to trademark a colour and to be successful you would need good evidence of distinctiveness, ie evidence (typically survey data) that the public associates the colour with your brand.  Where there is strong association you might get registration although obviously only for the goods and services for which their is evidence of distinctiveness.

It does look as if a colour on its own is just barely acceptable for registration, so for BP most of theirs are a lot more specific. The broadest one appears to be this (UK0002240552C):

Mark Description/Limitation
    The mark consists of the colour green (Pantone no.348C) applied to a visually substantial proportion of the exterior surface of service stations.
Disclaimer
    Registration of this mark shall give no right to the exclusive use of the colour green as applied to pumps, hoses and nozzles used for delivery of unleaded petrol

They do have a lot of them, so there may be other areas where they also claim just that colour. Mostly they specify green and yellow, as well as where it goes, though surprisingly for the sunflower motif (if that's what it is) they don't mention the colour at all.

[chrisr_75]

A colour wouldn't be made subject to copyright.  It might be possible to register a colour as a trade mark.  BP^» (Beyond Petroleum (Former name - British Petroleum) - home page) green, Cadbury's purple being some examples.  This practice is not questionable in intellectual property law. it is deliberately provided for in the Trade Mark Directive and the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) Act. 

It is not easy to trademark a colour and to be successful you would need good evidence of distinctiveness, ie evidence (typically survey data) that the public associates the colour with your brand.  Where there is strong association you might get registration although obviously only for the goods and services for which their is evidence of distinctiveness.

I does look as if a colour on its own is just barely acceptable for registration, so for BP most of theirs are a lot more specific. The broadest one appears to be this (UK0002240552C):

Mark Description/Limitation
    The mark consists of the colour green (Pantone no.348C) applied to a visually substantial proportion of the exterior surface of service stations.
Disclaimer
    Registration of this mark shall give no right to the exclusive use of the colour green as applied to pumps, hoses and nozzles used for delivery of unleaded petrol

They do have a lot of them, so there may be other areas where they also claim just that colour. Mostly they specify green and yellow, as well as where it goes, though surprisingly for the sunflower motif (if that's what it is) they don't mention the colour at all.

Close, the BP logo is called the 'Helios', the colour of which is not mentioned in the trademark presumably as it is also used in black & white/greyscale on letterheads and the like.

As mentioned above, the colour is protected for the exterior of filling stations in order that people can't pass off any old filling station as a BP filling station, although the colour can be used for pumps and such like. Quite a nice example of these IP laws working as they should.

[Tim]

Trademarks apply to the segments/markets they are applied to.

Strictly they apply to the goods and services listed in the Trademark specification which is submitted as part of the application and is subject to examination by the Trademark examiner. 

[Surrey 455]

easyGroup which includes easyJet is another where the exact colour pantone has been registered.

[Chris from Nailsea]

In the interests of clarity, I've split these recent posts off into this new discussion, separate from the existing 'renaming of FGW^▸ (First Great Western)/GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)' topic. 

[TonyK]

I hereby claim the colour magnolia as my trademark. Use it if you like, but I want 5p per wall.