Your article is dangerously uninformed. Nobody should rely on anything you have said as you seem not to know the differences among copyright, trademark, and patent and never address trade dress.
I find it ludicrous that “colors” can be protected by copyright, trademark or patents. Colors are part of nature and we merely “discover” a color we feel is unique. No one person truly “invents” a color that does not already exist.
Journalism matters. This story is a good start but contains errors the writer should have caught in a fact-check but didn’t. If this were an old school newspaper, the paper would issue a correction in a subsequent issue. The writer would learn from their mistake and move on. This is why journalism still matters. Without journalistic guardrails people are left to call each other stupid and cancel the writer, their story, premise etc. There is no growth opportunity.
Fact: The legal errors I am not expert in but are outlined above. UT Austin trademark color is orange, not red. And Louboutin won the right to protect its trademark red soles but lost the case to enjoin its competitor for infringement, as I recall So that is a squishy example. Keep writing! Fact check you work!!!
You might have mentioned that the use of Vanta black was granted to a single artist, Sir Amish Kapoor, which is really weird. And the Daguerre-Talbot comparison is weak for another reason. The daguerreotype was a technological dead end. Talbot’t invention of the negative became the mainstream of photography.
“Two universities, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of North Carolina, have trademarks on specific shades of red and blue respectively.”
A Blues musician one said to me “there’s nothing new in Blues, you think you’ve come up with something, then you hear it on a record.”
That seems to present itself as a short history of human innovation. Thus, providing deserved protection and allowing innovation is a moving target.
James Edward Gibbs invented a better sewing machine, but in order to sell it, he had to pay Singer for the license to use certain patented features.
Edison owned the screw-in light bulb, but Westinghouse had alternating current. Eventually we got to alternating current and screw-in light bulbs, but in 1893 the two were owned by distinct competitors.
Interesting thoughts that you've put on the table for discussion. I once thought such topics were boring, but it soon became a fascinating subject with many interesting avenues once I started teaching the basics of intellectual property. Just to be clear about patents, of which there are three types; Utility (in the sense you referred to), Design (New, original, & ornamental design for an article of manufacture), and Plant.
I don't agree that intellectual property is bad for idea users because it will cost them more. If anyone could freely produce someone else's idea, then there would soon be no monetary incentive to produce it at all because the competitors would soon put each other out of business.
Companies that trademark a product are paranoid about its name becoming part of the common vernacular, and therefore they essentially lose sole use of the name of that product. Think the use of Xerox instead of copying, Kleenex for tissues, Coke for any kind of soft drink, and Styrofoam for foamed polystyrene, just to give a few examples. Dow Chemical, the owner of the name “Styrofoam> has been known to reprove writers who use “Styrofoam” instead of foamed polystyrene in a research paper, and go after them if the use is continued. I don’t blame them, although I am very guilty of asking “What kind of Coke do you have? Pepsi or Coke?”
True story, I once made a color a trademark. Defended it for a decade as a renowned trademark. Then the client company and especially the lawyers I was replaced with, well they failed. Well done. Petty jealousy and corporate games.
Your article is dangerously uninformed. Nobody should rely on anything you have said as you seem not to know the differences among copyright, trademark, and patent and never address trade dress.
I find it ludicrous that “colors” can be protected by copyright, trademark or patents. Colors are part of nature and we merely “discover” a color we feel is unique. No one person truly “invents” a color that does not already exist.
Journalism matters. This story is a good start but contains errors the writer should have caught in a fact-check but didn’t. If this were an old school newspaper, the paper would issue a correction in a subsequent issue. The writer would learn from their mistake and move on. This is why journalism still matters. Without journalistic guardrails people are left to call each other stupid and cancel the writer, their story, premise etc. There is no growth opportunity.
Fact: The legal errors I am not expert in but are outlined above. UT Austin trademark color is orange, not red. And Louboutin won the right to protect its trademark red soles but lost the case to enjoin its competitor for infringement, as I recall So that is a squishy example. Keep writing! Fact check you work!!!
You might have mentioned that the use of Vanta black was granted to a single artist, Sir Amish Kapoor, which is really weird. And the Daguerre-Talbot comparison is weak for another reason. The daguerreotype was a technological dead end. Talbot’t invention of the negative became the mainstream of photography.
“Two universities, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of North Carolina, have trademarks on specific shades of red and blue respectively.”
RED?!!
A Blues musician one said to me “there’s nothing new in Blues, you think you’ve come up with something, then you hear it on a record.”
That seems to present itself as a short history of human innovation. Thus, providing deserved protection and allowing innovation is a moving target.
James Edward Gibbs invented a better sewing machine, but in order to sell it, he had to pay Singer for the license to use certain patented features.
Edison owned the screw-in light bulb, but Westinghouse had alternating current. Eventually we got to alternating current and screw-in light bulbs, but in 1893 the two were owned by distinct competitors.
A fascinating article!
Interesting thoughts that you've put on the table for discussion. I once thought such topics were boring, but it soon became a fascinating subject with many interesting avenues once I started teaching the basics of intellectual property. Just to be clear about patents, of which there are three types; Utility (in the sense you referred to), Design (New, original, & ornamental design for an article of manufacture), and Plant.
I don't agree that intellectual property is bad for idea users because it will cost them more. If anyone could freely produce someone else's idea, then there would soon be no monetary incentive to produce it at all because the competitors would soon put each other out of business.
Companies that trademark a product are paranoid about its name becoming part of the common vernacular, and therefore they essentially lose sole use of the name of that product. Think the use of Xerox instead of copying, Kleenex for tissues, Coke for any kind of soft drink, and Styrofoam for foamed polystyrene, just to give a few examples. Dow Chemical, the owner of the name “Styrofoam> has been known to reprove writers who use “Styrofoam” instead of foamed polystyrene in a research paper, and go after them if the use is continued. I don’t blame them, although I am very guilty of asking “What kind of Coke do you have? Pepsi or Coke?”
I'm old, I know what a Whiffle bat and ball are.
There are a ton of errors about IP law in this article. Sigh.
Utterly fascinating read.
My intuition says that there is a difference legal protection for a color (or a set of colors) and that same set of colors applied to a tractor.
True story, I once made a color a trademark. Defended it for a decade as a renowned trademark. Then the client company and especially the lawyers I was replaced with, well they failed. Well done. Petty jealousy and corporate games.
> Well, copyright refers to the rights of an author over their intellectual work - be it art, a recipe
In the US at least, recipes are protected by copyright: https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ33.pdf
And then there is McLaren Orange in racing.
This article is such nonsense.
Don’t know who you are, but you write really well and that’s damned hard to do. Thank you for the article.