T-Mobile owner sends in legal heavies to lean on small Brit biz over use of ’trademarked’ magenta • The Register
▻https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/09/deutsche_telekom_t_mobile_threatens_datajar_pink_logo
Business
T-Mobile owner sends in legal heavies to lean on small Brit biz over use of ’trademarked’ magenta
It’s enough to make you pinky swear
By Gareth Corfield 9 May 2018 at 11:30
Achtung troll! Deutsche Telekom has threatened a small British software house over its logo
Updated T-Mobile owner Deutsche Telekom is making legal threats against a small British business – on the grounds that the German company has an exclusive trademark on a shade of the colour magenta.
James Ridsdale, MD of Brighton-based business Datajar, said he was stunned after receiving a letter demanding he drop his own company’s trademark application because the firm’s logo happened to be pigmented in a particularly purplish pink.
A letter sent by London law firm Hogan Lovells on behalf of Deutsche Telekom (DT), seen by The Register and received by Ridsdale last Friday, stated:
“Your client has made extensive use of the colour Magenta (or a colour highly similar to Magenta) throughout its website… in relation to services that are highly similar to a number of the services that [DT] provides in the European Union.”
DT owns the T-Mobile brand in the UK, selling handsets and related hardware as well as providing mobile network operator services. Datajar is a small software house (six employees) specialising in Apple device data management for businesses. Nonetheless, DT claimed that the Great British Public (bless their silly little heads) might get the two companies mixed up as a result of the pinkness:
“The consumer might, for example, erroneously believe that there is a commercial or economic connection between our clients.”
Ridsdale sighed to El Reg: “We don’t sell hardware on any level; we’re not a telecommunications company. Because we’re in IT they want us to stop using the colour.”