What does it mean to trademark a color?

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/jardin-marjorelle-trademark-color

by prismatic • 3 years ago

43 22 3 years ago

atlasobscura.com

personjerry• 3 years ago

These recipe preambles are getting ridiculous

acadapter• 3 years ago

In Sweden there's a trademark for a shade of purple, but it's limited to the context of coffee branding

AmericanChopper2• 3 years ago

Isn’t that generally how trademarks work? Isn’t that why Cisco is allowed to make its own iOS?

randomdata• 3 years ago

Two operating systems would no doubt be considered to be in the same space. Apple licensed the iOS name from Cisco exactly to avoid a trademark suit.

TheNewAndy• 3 years ago

Another example would be cadbury (chocolate company) and another shade of purple. It makes sense - if you go into the shops and see a wall of purple, it is nice if you know what this actually represents, and don't have all the different brands converging on the colour of the most popular brand.

visarga• 3 years ago

Artists wanting to own ideas, not just the expression. They want to be creative themselves while blocking the rest.

Using legal threats to block others from creating in the same style happens today with AI too.

mcv• 3 years ago

It's important to keep in mind that trademarks are not copyrights. Copyright protects the investment of an artist, trademarks protect the interest of the customer. Customers want to be able to trust that when they buy shoes with the Nike swoosh, they're buying real Nike shoes and not a fake knock-off. I think that's only an issue with paint when the paint claims to be from Jardin Majorelle when it's not. The mere shade of the colour is exactly the quality that the customers do want, and possibly intentionally in a different paint type or quality, so as long as the real producer of the paint is clear, it's not a trademark issue.

What could be a trademark issue, is if there's another lush tourist garden with blue houses in Marrakesh. Of course tourists want to visit the real Jardin Majorelle and not a fake knock-off. But that's a protection within a very specific industry, and not claiming an entire colour.

hulitu• 3 years ago

trademarks protect the interest of the customer

Microsoft would like to dissagree.

Windows Commander was fine as a name.

Karellen3• 3 years ago

Wow. Another artist who's as much of a fucking douchebag as Anish Kapoor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anish_Kapoor#Vantablack_contro...

Seriously. "No-one else gets to use this color but me." Fucking douchebags.

sschueller• 3 years ago

"Alexa turn off the lights"
"I am sorry but that color is copyrighted, would you like to purchase it for one month?"

Patenting the process to get to Vantablack is fine, but you have no right to own that "color".

dtagames• 3 years ago

Photographs of the illuminated Eiffel Tower are also supposedly "protected" by trademark. Technically, you're not supposed to use one without permission of the government of Paris![0]

How ridiculous is that?

[0] https://www.toureiffel.paris/en/business/use-image-of-eiffel...

freejazz2• 3 years ago

Trademark rights don't allow you to own the color. They allow you to restrict the use of the color within certain areas of trade, assuming you meet certain requirements.

bootloop• 3 years ago

Don't want to defend any practice here. But this looks like two different things to me. Vantablack is a product (not just a color) which is exclusively licensed to the artist by the manufacturer. If someone comes up with it's own product reproducing the same results these can still can be bought and used for art (and given the wiki entry this happened).

Whereas in this article it appears to me that they trademarked the appearance of a color, resulting in other parties changing their recipe to not appear too similar, which I find a bit more problematic.

HelloMcFly2• 3 years ago

Kapoor is not the person who made the decision to license Vantablack to only one artist, he is not the bottleneck for this material. He controls neither its production nor its supply. I don't know why he's become the villain in this story, like's he's holding the Surrey Nanosystems' CEO hostage or something.

Karellen3• 3 years ago

I don't know why he's become the villain in this story,

It was his idea. He approached the manufacturers and offered them presumably a shit-ton of money to prevent anyone else from making art with it. He's the one who came up with the idea of spending his money to limit other people's ability to make art in a certain way:

After reading a newspaper story about the discovery of the pigment – which “we think is the blackest material in the universe, after a black hole”, Kapoor says – the excited artist contacted the British manufacturers, NanoSystem, and offered to collaborate with them.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/sep/26/anish-k...

I mean, if a bunch of beancounters in the manufacturer's head office had come up with the idea that, hey, maybe we can maximise our returns to shareholders by offering this exclusive deal around, that's at least in their wheelhouse. And an artist might might be able to rationalise taking that deal if it were offered - maybe even if only on the grounds that "if I don't, someone else will".

But for someone who calls themself an artist to decide what they really want to do is limit other people's ability to make art, and will go out of their way to instigate that and make it happen?

Fucking. Douchebag.

conor_f• 3 years ago

I do think trademarking a color is ridiculous. However, I read something before (likely on HN but I can't find it now) explaining the value companies like Pantone provide. When Pantone "publish" a color, they define how this color will look when displayed on different media, printed, digital, on concrete or on wood, or under different lighting conditions including UV or IR, etc etc. It's a lot more than just saying "I own #AABBCC".

I don't know the specifics of this case, but this looks like it falls firmly into the category of "I'm egotistical" as opposed to the "I am providing additional value" category.

dale_glass• 3 years ago

Yup, in fact setting a color to #RRGGBB in software doesn't mean very much. Okay, you asked for 100% red, but what is "100% red", exactly? It depends on how good the monitor is, and whether the calibration is good or not.

That's where you need measurement and calibration. You can easily see the need for it if you compare multiple displays like a monitor, laptop and cell phone showing the same picture. They're quite likely to be noticeably different.

And printing uses a completely different color system (CMYK), so things get even more interesting there.

What does it mean to trademark a color?

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