Deutsche Telekom / T-Mobile demands Engadget Mobile discontinue using the color magenta
By Ryan Block 
posted Mar 31st 2008 2:24PM
posted Mar 31st 2008 2:24PM
Granted, we get nastygrams from angry tech companies practically every day, but rarely regarding anything that's not some piece of news we published that they're livid about having out in the open. And irony of ironies, this whole use-of-magenta thing is precisely the topic we took up last year on behalf of DT.
We spoke with David Beigie, vice president of corporate communications for T-Mobile US, who offered: "As a trademark owner, from time to time Deutsche Telekom looks at usage that could lead to confusion in the marketplace. The letter sent by DT merely outlines these perspectives and is meant to simply open a dialogue. Engadget continues to pioneer forums for discussion of wireless industry developments and innovation. T-Mobile respects the role Engadget and its readers play in advancing dialog on these important topics."
So in the interest of that open dialog we've posted Deutsche Telekom's letter below, as well as a handy guide to allay any confusion should you suddenly find yourself disoriented and trying to buy your next SideKick or MDA from Engadget Mobile.
P.S. -Not an early April Fool's joke.
Update: We went magenta! More here.
| Deutsche Telekom | Engadget Mobile |
|
|---|---|---|
| Cellphone carrier | Yep | No |
| Distributor of telecom equipment | Yep | No |
| Likely to be mistaken for T-Mobile / Deutsch Telekom | We certainly hope so |
No |
| Former state-owned monopoly | Yep | No |
| Has something against US 3G | Apparently | No |
| Has more than five friends | Might not anymore |
Yep |
Priceless.....
this is awesome! made my afternoon!
Gee... Does that mean they own the Pink Panther too?
God knows which idiot allow that patent to go through.
I am in trouble, too?
<div style="color: #ff00ff">I am in trouble, too?</div>
You guys should so screw them over and not publish anything about T-Mobile. BOYCOTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!....maybe?
Next thing you know apple will patent white and sue everyone in spain :O
Hmm, interesting, white is all colors, so they could sue everyone that's using something other than black?
You've got a series of squares, the color magenta, and the word Mobile. All your missing is the T. I think with the right amount of drive and money, they could make things difficult for you Engadget. Not that I agree. Just sayin'.
THATS DAVID BEIGE!
...AND DOUCHE TELEKOM.
Trademark law is f*cked. I mean, isn't this just something they *have* to do in order to keep the trademark? If they don't defend it, it counts against them in FUTURE cases. They can actually lose it and other actual Telecoms companies will legally be allowed to start using it.
IANAL but I've heard of this thing quite a lot, and it never goes to court.
I'm more pissed at Barclays for trying to trademark the phrase 'Hole in the wall' for ATMs, when they stole the bloody phrase from the people in the first place.
If anything, Engadget Mobile should just reply with a link to their webpage, redesigned with EVERYTHING as magenta as possible.
Nothing better than giving retarded corporations the finger.
Just watch......... next AT&T will sue engadget mobile & you guys an for your blue coloured curves soon!!
Just use my trick.. tell them you are colorblind and then threaten to sue them for not respecting a documented disability...
@ C -- Who said anything about a patent? Do you have any idea what you are talking about? lol
Anyways... this is pretty ridiculous since I would be shocked if even the most clueless soccer mom in the world confused a tech blog with T-mobile.
I would tell them to go shove it. What are they going to do? Sue you? Like they are going to spend a million dollars to file a lawsuit and litigate this...? It's got to be some bored in house T-mobile attorneys flexing their corporate muscles. What a dumb fight to pick tho...
They should spend their money improving the sidekick (the thing has barely changed in 3 generations) rather than serving tech blogs threatening letters.
What a PR disaster indeed. This is a perfect example of poor inter-departmental collaboration in a monolithic organization. If the legal division had consulted the marketing division, they would have realized this is a net loss for the company. Engadget that provides a source of free advertising vis a vis all of the press release information about new T-Mobile stuff that Engadget posts.
Besides, very few corporations stick with the same logo and colours forever.
Time to pull out the AOL Time Warner lawyers! I guess being owned by a megacorp is going to help you out for once Engadget! Fight it to the end.
does that mean t-mobile is going to kill all the flamingos in the world?
haha replying to Shakespeares Right saying
"When is someone gonna sue over...you know...black colored words..."
The answer? As sooon as I trademark it lol along with green, blue, yellow, white, red and any color in between.
Now every site I design will have that specific colour of magenta.
MAGEEEEENNNTAAAAAAAA!!!
haha guess what colour BBC's front page is ?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/
I think you should cave and change the logo. I have a suggestion:
http://www.destinysflame.com/kamo/engmob.jpg
OMG! IMPOSTER! I AM THE ONLY PETER F!
Dumbass move, T-Mobile. boohooforyou!
ridicolous,
but not offensive .. i think they didn't mean to make engadget readers theire enemies with this "letter". they are appreceating engadgets impact and are nicely approaching this topic. plus, i think it has more "ground" than some apple "lawsuits" ..
yeah - stupid
I really hope Engadget wins! Besides, IMO, if the connection between t-mo and and engadget mobile was sooooo obvious (which it isn't!) then wouldn't it be free advertising on one of the most respected and most well read cell phones?
well using the picture provided, the 'purples' aren't even the same! What is the definition of a particular color anyway and who says so?
But I hope the best for you guys. Don't waste too much money and boycott T-MO (Don't use the word sidekick) and that'll be even easier considering the recent Starbucks ATT agreement.
They've done this before. Take a look at Intel's first Centrino logo when it launched a few years ago, vs. the color of the logo now. They had to pull back all of their advertising for launching the product, change the color of the logos, and re-launch.
@ nh
"IANAL"? I'd rather not...
*looks up acronym on urbandictionary*
Make everything- I mean everything in Engadget Mobil Magenta- just for like a week though
What a bunch of Deutsche bags
nice... Tell them to suck it.
Las Den Quatsch!
All other Engadget commenters take note: this may be the funniest comment of 2008 thus far.
Well, that's pretty offensive.
I agree with Ryan
i seriously hope this is a deutsche bag april fools joke that mistakenly got sent too early. Magenta text for all future T-Mobile Stories!!!
how bout no future t-mobile stories? they deserve whats coming to them. NOBODY SCREWS AROUND WITH ENGADGET(MOBILE,HD etc...)
Hehe, made my day..
LOL!
btw i dont think of T-Mobile when i see the colour magenta.. that line that they have in the letter is just plain stupid!
Eh, more like a slightly amusing pun than "the funniest comment of 2008", especially considering the stretch to get from "doich-eh" to "doosh", but hey.
This comment is sooo full of win!! I agree with Ryan, I was rolling on the floor here at work.
Congratulations, you have won one (1) Internet. Please pick it up at your earliest convenience.
Does he get an official award?
ryan, you better give him an award! Screw Tmo. I was considering to switch to them from sprint but if they a mobile carrier does anything to one of the 3 engadgets, that crosses the line. Screw the deutsche bags!!!
Amazing hahaha. I completely agree Ryan.
girls just wanna have Frun
many american expatriates refer to their new country as "doucheland." i like that better.
Ohhh I cant wait to see what I won. Maybe an actual douche bag, with the "e" logo?
.
.
ummmm second thought, an acrylic award would be better displayed on my desk.
How 'bout some stinking permalinks? It would be nice not to have to view source to find the div id to manually create a URI for Instant Messaging to friends. (Like http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/31/deutsche-telekom-t-mobile-demands-engadget-mobile-discontinue/#c11362887 ) It can only benefit Engadget in terms of driving traffic.
Sorry the links the "comment page" don't work because it removes the comment from its context thus removing the humor.
@Sam:
you mean one tube from the series of tubes?
Goodness... Are you trying to kill me? When I read "Deutsche bags" I choked on chewing gum. Damn.
Oh, I see what you did there!
I sure hope to hell that you didn't have "E-Mail me when someone replies to this comment" ticked when you posted that.
And, Aguiluz, of course he is. He posted that comment deliberately to make you chew on chewing gum :P
P.s. "Chewing gum is a disgusting habit" (paraphrased) - Willy Wonka
good one!
darnet you guys, I'm supposed to be doing homework, but these comments and the t-mo bashing and discussion is soooo fun.
I tip my hat to you good sir.
Now let's get ready to RUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMBLE!
That is classic, that's what that is.
oh my god i just pissed myself
Since when did a company have a right to copyright a color????
If I were you Engadget, I wouldn't take any shit off a company that used to be crappy "Voicestream"
(And P.S. Ryan - about before.... Hitachi claimed Deskstars AREN'T "ServerGrade")
I'm not aware of any copyrighted colors, but I do know of cases where colors were trademarked. It's my understanding that it's pretty set that trademarks don't have to be only words or symbols in the traditional sense.
When is someone gonna sue over...you know...black colored words...
Try to use the color brown with any product or service involving a box, tube, envelope, truck, van, or aircraft; and you will incur the rath of a shipping company that uses that color on everything that has their name on it. In my state, a specific shade of orange is used by a tree trimming/cutting company as well. If I remember correctly a beverage company will get upset if you make a can colored red.
Yes, as I remember PMS colors can be trademarked.
Lol, soon we won't have websites because someone will sue over black ink. Then we won't be able to speak when we are sued for using the English Language!!! AHHHHHH
Some examples: http://www.bureauofcreativecommerce.com/alllogos/Color.htm
Also, Coke trademarked its red, Pepsi the blue and the "transparent" of one of its brand (crystal? it's not sold anymore anyway), and many many other stuff. Please note that bears are trademarked by many companies (honey, tuna fish, and such) as mascots and that you cannot wear a t-shirt with the letters CK on it in i-dont-remember-which-font without paying Calvin Klein. You cannot take a picture with the Eiffel Tower in it and sell it without consent.
Welcome to the real world. There are reasons to these trademarks. Now will someone here get a clue? It's not the same as software patents... it's trademark.
the sound of a Harley Davidson's motor is trademarked if I'm not mistaken. It happens.
Max Barry had a really nice blog about this kind of thing.
http://www.maxbarry.com/2006/02/18/news.html
When Disney owned the musical note "A#" (A sharp)
;)
You CAN trademark (copyright is the wrong term here) a color. And sadly, DT has trademarked the color magenta. Go to http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=login&p_lang=english&p_d=trmk and do a "Basic" search for registration numbers 3263625 and 3263624. I would not take this lightly as the registrations are about 6 months old and DT is probably looking to "make an example" out of someone.
Use 99% of Magenta, not pure. That's all.
Here's a comparison of engadget mobile magenta vs t-mobile magenta (taken from t-mobile's website's source code)
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj50/___CAL___/6b36eb45.jpg
How about making the WHOLE of engadget mobile in magenta, all in pretty shades?!
@ Cal
Exactly. Deutsche Telekom holds a German trademark on the specific shade of magenta RAL 4010, which isn't the same as Engadget Mobile's magenta. Guess the in-house lawyers at DT have nothing else to do but piss off everybody here at Engadget.
dude april fools is tomorrow. you posted this one day early.
Except it's real.
:whoosh!:
It's not Engadget, it's them. Does anyone know if it's April 1st in Germany by now? I'm not too good with adding time zones.
unfortunately
http://engadget.mobile.justgotowned.com
Sorry guys......
Neebs it's only 8:45PM there, and the letter came last week
You can't buy bad PR like that.
Don't tell Sony that.
you should Engage T-Mobile in a conversation. Wait, maybe that should be EngaDge T-Mobile.... OK, now I get it. TMOBILE is in www.engadgeTMOBILE.com
Kinda makes sense. Would be better if if your site were called Suckitt.com
SUCKITTMOBILE.com Sweet.
wow...
duuuuude! like i smoked 2 blunts yo!
Ha! Man, those germans sure have an odd sense of humor...
-Taylor
Yeah, it's "the Germans" behind this letter, of course! The whole country gets together every Tuesday night (on MeinSchnitzel.com of course, the German equivalent of MySpace.com) to plot the legal take-over of the world, one tech blog at a time.
No, but the Smurfs might have something to say about the use of pale blue.
I have been using magenta in my web site for almost 20 years. I think that T-Mobile is infringing my my copyright. At the very least this is prior art.
So .. you had a website in 1988?
Sticking with the lawyer happy theme of this post, you should sue Tim Berners-Lee for claiming to invent the web in 1989.
FAIL!
I don't know if somebody posted this link already, but I though this might be usefull: http://www.freemagenta.nl/
Good find!
Awesome find! Click the UK flag for a translation to English.
they're not even the same color!
Great table, btw
yeah. They're not the same color in engadget's post... but if you compare the websites, the color is pretty damn close. If engadget feels so guiltless, why did they change the color of T-Mobile's logo for this posting?
Dear T-Mobile:
In response to your previous request: Ahh, No!
Sincerely,
Engadget Mobile
Dear Douche Telekunt,
Suck my rainbow.
Engadget
wow. Surprised Apple hasn't written in to complain about your use of white as a background color...given...well...you know...
Why would Apple complain about one of it's greatest advertisers and fanboys?
isn't that the way they roll?
I thought Engadget Mobile had a trademark on the 'Magneta' Colour. Now DT claims they did it first?..
BTW, from what little knowledge I have.. Colours can't be trademarked.. (can they?).
I understand DT wants to avoid confusion.. but this may help them rather than hurt..
They could freakin release a special 'Engadget Edition' Cell phone plan or something.. Something to compensate for this crap and at the same time, listen to some major tech consumer people.. Like us.. You guys have an idea what we want..
All in all (nobody uses that anymore..), they can't force you to do anything..
Next move is yours, Engadget Mobile (Purple's nice...)
I realize that yes, colours can be trademarked...
But is the T-mobiles colour the same as Engadget Mobile?