Deutsche Telekom / T-Mobile demands Engadget Mobile discontinue using the color magenta
By Ryan Block 
posted March 31st 2008 2:24PM
posted March 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 |
Ask to the TMobile guys a lot of money and give them the magenta. It's a crazy world, it should not possible to patent a f#####g color... so go ahead write to them a kind letter and ask for several hundred thousand dollars to find a friendly settlement. They would spent a lot of money in a litigation, several years and thousand of mail and correspondences...
Engadget, shouldn't you guys sue T-Mobile?
Are they trying to open up dialog about colors or destroy the T-Mobile brand name?
lets all send tmobile silly emails and that they have just won 50,000$ in Nigeria???
Wow, crazy germans.
So next we'll be seeing McDonald's going after subway for the use of the color yellow...ya, this is gonna fly.
wait a second...who are these more than five friends of which you speak?
i only counted 5 there. and engadget clearly stated they had more than 5. i sense an impending lawsuit for misrepresentation as well. shame on you, engadget.
You are all crazy, that's not magenta, it's green.... oops I'm color blind, maybe T-Mobile has some job openings.
Arguing over a color? That is absurd. Submit it to /. and Ars - see what DT says when they get 300,000 angry phone calls and every weblog on the WWW picks up the story. Probably be on the NYT front page by morning.
"IF THE COLOR DOESN'T FIT, YOU MUST ACQUIT!"
Okay, maybe that was a little lame. I need more coffee.
That's some funny shit right there.
Engadget ftw.
So you cant use magenta or any other color with a shade of magenta. you probably cant use black and red because that is Verizon. Nor can you use blue and white thats AT&T. Yellow is also taken by sprint. Virgin mobile also uses red and black so Verizon would have to sue them first. I was thinking about green but Cricket got that one. Orange is taken by boost mobile. did we run out of colors? Ahhh. Maybe brown. Although UPS might come breathing down your neck for delivering news in brown.
I would like to remind Engadget that I own the trademark black since I claimed it after the 1st nanosecond after the big bang and request that Engadget cease and desist from using this color in their posts and switch to a white text on white background to prevent further infringements on any other colors.
Signed....GOD
What you mean this is not t-mobile?
Don't know if someone posted this, but Deutsche Telekom already lost some cases around 2002 in Germany concerning the color.
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A//www.heise.de/newsticker/Kein-Magenta-Monopol-fuer-Deutsche-Telekom--/meldung/28179&hl=en&langpair=de|en&tbb=1&ie=UTF-8
Oh, they actually won this time:
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A//www.heise.de/newsticker/Telekom-gewinnt-Magenta-Prozess-gegen-MobilCom--/meldung/40207&hl=en&langpair=de|en&tbb=1&ie=UTF-8
So what is the range of "magenta" anyway? ff6622-336622 or some such, lol.
what a fantastic way to piss off the community
The only people to get confused by the Engadget Mobile color usage won't be in the loop enough to be reading Engadget Mobile in the first place, right?
Wow, this is like microsoft level stupidity.
Now it is the time on Sprockets when ve sue!
whoa, i'm not crazy. someone had replied to me there but it's gone. just trust me. the reply that i replied to would have made my above comment the mother of all comments. oh man, it was good. you just had to be there. good times.
*wipes tear from eye*
son of a diseased ball sack, what it wrong with this whole replying thing? i hate you, engadget! i hate you and the crappy phones you don't sell on this site! i hate you and your lack of telecom distribution!
If their *customers* are confused because some tech blog has the color magenta in their logo - then they all need to be shot. So what colors are allowed? Red? No. Coke uses red. So does Pepsi for that matter. Hmmm...how about white? No, that's apple (and silver for that matter). How about blue? No, that's IBM, HP and Dell.
Just...wow. I can't believe it!
No doubt Marvel comics is next accompanied by a disclaimer by Sir Ian McKellan in all future DVD releases of the X-Men trilogy to the effect of:
"The events, characters, colors, and super hero/villain capes portrayed in this film are a work of fiction and in no way portray actual telephone models or cellular telephone services. Any similarity to actual telephone models or services is purely coincidental except when an inference is made by the audience in which case the use of the color magneta, the word "magneta," or any names similar to it will be considered of promotional value."
Oh LOL... dont these companies have anything better to do ?
these are colors, we're talking about, man. COLORS. get your priorities right. don't stop fighting, T-mobile! you go girl!
Has more than five friends
Deutsche Telekom : Might not anymore
engadget : Yep
owned(?)
Let's assume they are using a trademarked PMS color... The only part of their logo in that color is one letter, although that same letter exists in the name of the site they are having issue with, it is not represented in that color anywhere on that site. In fact that same PMS color is not used on the site anyway, the color they claim is being used in not even the same shade of that color... Anyone without cataracts or colorblindness, or general blindness should be able to see the difference.
That's it, I'm going to trademark 26 pairs of symbols, and then patent a process to place these symbols on a wood-pulp based surface, using a pigment and carrier medium, contaning volitile organic compounds that when dry will leave recognizable markings on said surface. Then I will sue all the english language newspapers and magazines, then all the companies that print packages or boxes, then the manufacturers of pens, and then...and then...and then...and then...
Ok, time to start taking my meds again.
ok, took meds, feeling better now....
Classic. But honestly...you should change the site E-Mobile with a magenta E. To further reduce confusion.
Who the heck are T-Mobile anyway other than a niche player with a shrinking marketshare :-)
Not even top 3 in this market. And they would be lower if V and T did not merge everything!
Hey Ryan,
Don't take any crap from them. Besides, only "Girly Men" copyright the color PINK! Yeah, that's right, I said it, PINK. This whole Magenta is just a fancy word "Girly Men" for the Father Land use for PINK. An example of the absurdity would be like:
"a grande extra hot soy with extra foam, split shot with a half squirt of sugar-free vanilla and a half squirt of sugar-free cinnamon, a half packet of splenda, oh and put that in a venti cup and fill up the "room" with extra whipped cream with carmel and chocolate sauce drizzled on top"
is just a light coffee with Equal to the rest of us.
And for those of you that have never seen the word Girly Man used before, I'll let the Governator give an example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUzUbtIptqQ
*ts surpr*s*ng Apple st*ll let us use the letter *
Well all i know is when i see magenta i want to buy T-mobile and not be reading engadgetmobile.com i mean come on how am i to know that engadgetmobile.com is not the t-mobile company i have been taught to think of when i see magenta. Wait a second who is T-Mobile anyways??????
PERSONALLY I think this was a BRILLIANT move on T-Mobile's part!
All this time I thought they had terrible customer service...
Turns out, the reason I've never received a reply to my e-mails is I've been sending them to Engadget Mobile!
It's all so clear now, why I never could find my billing history when I logged in...
Thanks DT!
I say change it to orange or throw some blue and white stripes in there and see what ATT Mobility does.
I'm not agreeing with DT but the logos are sorta-kinda similar, even though the products/services are not....in this day and age you really have to protect your 'name'. As the US guy said, it's only to open dialog right? So, tell them 'no'. LOL. Why is it magenta anyway? Gee...what a departure from the apple aqua of norm.
you open the lines of dialogue and you know what happens next? your mother-in-law is living in your house and forcing you to move into your own basement and to file her corns with your teeth, that's what. don't do it, engadget. be strong in your fancy magenta fanciness.
i lol'd.
Not to one up T-Mobile, but we also use magenta in our logo and have for a lot lot lot longer than T-mobile. Not only do we use Magenta but we also have blue as our other color in our logo design. Actually it is almost identical to engadgetmobile's colors. I hereby ask engadgetmobile to cease using these colors to not confuse our drycleaning customers into trying to use your services when they are trying to use ours. (JK) Hopefully this finds you in the best possible light and we look forward to seeing your new color scheme. Sincerely Me.
Surely their letter should read
"Given that the only use of magenta we have located thus far appears in the logo and certain headings on your website it appears...we are a load of petty minded idiots with no reason to moan in the first place but we've nothing better to do with our lives."
So you can't use magenta, and Orange will complain if you use...well...orange...AT&T have got blue...Verizon's a bit orange as well maybe they should sue Orange...Cingular is blue and orange so maybe they should sue AT&T, Orange, Verizon, and the sky just for good measure...
This photo is the right side ad when i pull this story up.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21615042@N06/2378222134/
coincidence? stick it to em engadget.
Im gona get free food for 2 weeks from tmobile!
There was something weird like this with a French-based company called Montana that sued the state of Montana for name infringement. Think the French company lost... Sometimes the legal departments of some companies scare me, into thinking they can claim ownership of practically anything for any reason.
Don't change the magenta colors Engadget! Show 'em who's boss!
Tell them to kiss your non-Deutsch arse....idiots.
The only similarity between the T-Mobile logo and the Engadget Mobile logo is that they share a color that is vaguely the same. That's it. Other than that, for T-Mobile to think that the average Engadget reader doesn't have the mental capacity to separate the two companies is seriously insulting and is an open invitation for a Web style revolt the likes it will regret for a long, long time. Good going T-Mobile, we hope you enjoy the "dialogue" you've started.
This is to unbelievable after all tomorrow is aprils fools day.
In a related story, "Mr. T" is suing T-Mobile for copyright infringement... his lawyer has indicated he would consider dropping his action if Deutche Telekom agrees to switch their 'T' to lower case...
... *and* if they agree to cease distribution of coverage maps that in any way resemble a mohawk!
Tell those sucker to bring it on!
This is funny to date.