February 19, 2005
As as a color, orange could one day become the legal property of Orange
This is really wild. As a color, orange could one day become the legal property of Orange, the British mobile phone company, according to the The New York Times.
"Orange said yesterday evening that it would sue easyMobile, a wireless start-up founded by the entrepreneur Stelios Haji-Ioannou, who also founded the easyJet discount airline. Orange wants to keep easyMobile from ever using its signature color in advertisements.
The crux of the argument is that ads for Orange prominently feature its namesake color. Its shade of orange is similar to the one used by all the easyGroup brands, and to the one that easyMobile plans to use in advertisements of its own.
Suing for the rights to a color is not as unusual as it may sound, lawyers said. United Parcel Service, for example, has a trademark on the shade of brown that decks its uniforms, its logo and its trucks."
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