Take a look at the color above. What does it make you think of?
If your first thought was “Tiffany & Co,” then I’m sure company would be more than satisfied. I’ve always known that the distinctive Robin’s egg hue is a staple on any Tiffany’s product, but I didn’t realize until recently that Tiffany & Co. actually has ownership over this color by trademark. When I first heard this, I thought it was utterly ridiculous. Let’s be honest. It’s a color. It’s nothing more than a particular shade of blue. It’s not like Tiffany & Co. invented the color of Robins’ eggs. Hell, I would defend Paris Hilton’s trademark of “That’s Hot” before I would defend Tiffany & Co. At least Paris used the few neurons in her brain to come up with it herself.
However, when I actually looked into it, I realized that Pantone, an industrial design corporation, technically produced this color using a special color reproduction system. In fact, Pantone has created a number of recognizable colors for commercial use. Think Cadbury purple. Think Barbie pink. Those are both Pantone colors, and they are both protected under trademark as well.
Let’s refer back to the US Copyright Office’s definition of a trademark. The Office states that “trademark protects words, phrases, symbols, or designs identifying the source of the goods or services of one party and distinguishing them from those of others.” Obviously, Tiffany & Co., Cadbury, or Barbie’s color trademarks do not fit into this classic definition.
They fall into the “nontraditional trademark” category. Things seem a little murky to me on this front, though. I can wrap my head around the nontraditional trademark of the design of a perfume bottle or of Apple’s iPod shape, but a trademark over a color still seems a little silly. Yes, it’s an excellent marketing and branding tool, but where’s the innovation? Does Tiffany’s really deserve to own the color?
While trademarking a color is a hard concept to grasp, when you think about what Tiffany and Co. has been able to do with its trademark it does seem to make sense to me. Without the trademark the company could not afford to so firmly associate their brand with the color without risking both the degradation of their brand image and competitive products of inferior quality being confused for the real thing. To Tiffany’s the color does function as a sort of logo, and they have managed to make any use of the color immediately bring their company to mind. If it were used universally that would not be possible. This is also evidenced in the many spoofs and parodies that employ the color, which would not work if it did not so explicitly evoke Tiffany’s. If a beverage company can trademark the shape of a bottle, then why shouldn’t they be able to trademark a color, as long as they originated the use of that particular hue?
I think that ebm16 raises some great points. However, it seems to me that mixing various colors to create a trademarked shade is the visual equivalent of mixing various scents to create a unique perfume or cologne. For example, anyone who has shopped in Abercrombie and Fitch or even walked passed the store in a shopping mall can probably recognize the brands signature cologne “Fierce,” as machines that circulate the scent around the stores are a staple of the company’s branding. Considering the smell is widely believed to be the most powerful human sense, I feel it is illogical to award trademarks to colors without affording the same protection to scents.
Has any one seen the commercial for Korean Air where it is black, white, and a blue that seems to scream Tiffany’s? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMA5CHCAqFQ&feature=player_embedded#)
The first time I saw it I thought it was a commercial for Tiffany’s until the end. I googled and could not find if there was any response on Tiffany’s part but many other people also thought it was tiffany blue. Since trademark is dependent of the owner’s enforcement of their trademark, could Tiffany lose their trademark if they don’t seek action against Korean Air, or does it not matter because their industries are different? It must be hard to enforce every infringement of color. I wonder how many people these companies have to just check if their color trademark has been infringed.
I think that trademarked colors really represent the subtle variations that exist within the realm of copyright and trademark. I would have to agree with ebm16 in that the Tiffany’s blue functions as the company’s logo. When I imagine Tiffany’s, I think of the “little blue box.” That shade of blue in a way defines Tiffany’s, which should be able to be protected through trademark. With that said, Tiffany’s has the responsibility to protect their trademarked blue color. The blue in the Korean Air does closely resemble Tiffany blue, so if the color is in fact the distinctive Tiffany’s blue, then the company has to protect its trademark.
Interestingly, colors are not always easy to trademark; the distinctive color must without a doubt represent the essence of the company. BP, the oil company, tried to trademark the Pantone green shade in its logo. However, the court denied the trademark since the logo also depended on the yellow and starburst shape to represent the company (http://gmarkets.wordpress.com/2007/09/27/high-court-rejects-bps-distinctive-green-pantone-348c-as-a-trademark/).
I agree that Tiffany’s has successfully transformed the color into a very recognizable logo, but owning the color by trademark still seems tricky and perhaps unnecessary to me.
The color in the Korean Air ad Jenna posted seems to strongly resemble Tiffany’s signature color, as well as the Tocca beauty products hue I seem to always see on 6th ave (http://www.luckyscent.com/images/products/34112.jpg).
Trouble is, these colors probably aren’t the exact Pantone shade of blue. And if that’s the case, I’m not sure Tiffany’s would be able to do anything about it. However, even if they were the exact shade of blue, would Tiffany’s business really be affected? Here’s where ebm16 and I disagree. I believe that Tiffany’s could have still built their iconic brand on this color without a trademark. I think Tiffany’s success with this shade of blue has been a product of its marketing and cultural symbolism, and not necessarily dependent on the company’s ownership of the color.
This is really interesting! I’ve always just assumed that colors are part of trademark and thought nothing of it or the consequences of “stealing” the shade. Colors create the company, just like there are school color combinations. And Korean Air has always been that color blue. A magazine company I worked for kept a chart of their specific colors they can use for headlines because those were the signature colors, etc. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to credit that Pantone did create the specific shade just like any other manufacturer making a product.
And if you want to be technical, then you can break it down to its RGB color/hue values and realize THAT is code and code is law…
This is absurd, you cannot stake claim to a color that exists in the world, you can own the machine and the ability to manufacture colors using that machine, but it is still a color that exists in the rainbow of colors.
I suppose the trademark comes down to what is visually distinctive about a word, symbol/logo, color, or design. Since branding relies heavily on the appearance and overall image of the product (and not necessarily the product itself), I can imagine why colors are easier to trademark than scents. Even the “nontraditional trademark” description you linked to explains that scents are “one of the most difficult to represent graphically” and accordingly are harder to register as trademarks. Same situation with recipes, which are mostly distinguished by the way they taste, not by their appearance (though I’m sure there are food products that are undeniably associated with a certain look/shape). In cases like that, however, the food product would probably just trademark their packaging (e.g. Cadbury’s purple).
Anyway, I have two random questions:
1) Is the green in our blog design trademarked by “Cordobo”?
2) How blatantly suggestive is 0:16-0:20 in the Korean Air commercial? Hilarious.
Sorry, what do you mean redo the blog post?
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This web site is so cool. Let’s refer back to the US Copyright Office’s definition of a trademark. The Office states that “trademark protects words, phrases, symbols, or designs identifying the source of the goods or services of one party and distinguishing them from those of others.” Obviously, Tiffany & Co., Cadbury, or Barbie’s color trademarks do not fit into this classic definition.
Glad to be of some help
. This is really interesting! I’ve always just assumed that colors are part of trademark and thought nothing of it or the consequences of “stealing” the shade. Colors create the company, just like there are school color combinations. And Korean Air has always been that color blue. A magazine company I worked for kept a chart of their specific colors they can use for headlines because those were the signature colors, etc. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to credit that Pantone did create the specific shade just like any other manufacturer making a product.
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