T-Mobile’s parent company goes after smartwatch manufacturer Oxy over logo color

By Dan Isacsson Published November 21, 2015

t mobile threatens oxy deutsche telekom sue over color — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Lawsuits filed over the use of certain colors do not occur often, but they are a legitimate cause for concern. That’s what T-Mobile parent company Deutsche Telekom appears to be going for, according to a blog post from the smartwatch producer Oxy.

Oxy was working on an IndieGoGo campaign and was in the middle of preparing for the launch when Telekom sent word. Having filed its own trademark this August, Oxy received a “notice of threatened opposition” on November 3, 16 days before the trademark was expected to become official. Following this, the company spent one week modifying over 25,000 image files as well as other design assets in order to avoid going to court. Oxy stated that it didn’t know how often the German company threatened this type of legal action, and thus decided to focus on its “upcoming Indiegogo campaign and the development of Oxy, not legal issues.”

Recommended Videos

Deutsche Telekom didn’t seem too keen on letting the details of this ordeal become public. Oxy mentions a well-placed confidentiality clause that apparently should not be trifled with. With that said, the blog post does its best in circumventing the issue by mentioning that two colors from their previous logo were involved in the threat: clear magenta and bleak grey. Considering the use of magenta in Telekom’s logo, we deem it safe to say that Oxy’s new black, white and orange-oriented designs are good to go.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

This wasn’t the first endeavor of this kind from Detuche Telekom; the telecommunications giant had previously sent similar notices to Engadget, AT&T’s Aio Wireless, and Globalnet Telecom, among others.

While it’s important for companies to unique brands protected by trademark law, suing for the rights to general colors seems excessively litigious. If we’re already seeing colors like magenta (RAL 4010) getting trademarked, why not yellow, blue, or green? But hey, they say limitations spark creativity, so maybe we’ll see the invention of entirely new and impossible colors to escape these constraints.

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Being a gamer since the age of three, Dan took an interest in mobile gaming back in 2009. Since then he's been digging ever…

Computing

How to record a Microsoft Teams meeting

A video call in Microsoft Teams is displayed on a laptop.

Knowing how to use Microsoft Teams to record a meeting can save you so much time that's often spent asking people to repeat instructions or remind you of what they said. Organizations may also want to record troubleshooting meetings for later analysis, compliance requirements, or to recall significant decisions that were made.

Microsoft Teams understands this and has made the recording process simple to use – if it’s set up properly.

Branded Content

Dashlane simplifies digital credential management for people, teams and businesses

Dashlane credential management tool for teams featured image

Have you ever considered a credential management tool for your team or business? Allow me to explain. When it comes to digital and online safety, something you hear often is never to share your credentials, account details, or passwords with anyone. You're not supposed to share account details or passwords, even with people you know well. That's not necessarily because they can't be trusted, it's more that you never know how someone else will handle your sensitive information. If they stow it somewhere easily accessible, like in a plain text document on their desktop, it weakens your security and makes your accounts more vulnerable. Plus, there’s no telling who they’ll share that information with.

Keeping your logins to yourself is also how you’re advised to protect professional or business accounts in the workplace. But it makes things more difficult, especially when you’re working with a team. Sometimes, you need tool or platform logins to be available to everyone. There is a much better way to administrate password sharing, and most importantly, it doesn’t compromise security. The answer is a digital credential management tool like Dashlane.

Branded Content

Thanks to Squarespace Refresh website building has never been more intuitive

squarespace refresh makes web building intuitive featured image

When it comes to building and designing your own website, from scratch, there is a lot of trial and error involved. Believe me, I've been there. But what's more important as an entrepreneur and when you're trying to present your business, big or small, is that the presentation has to be decidedly professional. It needs to be attractive and user-friendly, with easy access to everything that's most important for your business. Whether that's a section to browse available products, checkout, learn more about you and the team, or something else entirely. It's a lot of work and requires a lot of time invested. It's so much easier to have a templatized and convenient builder handy.

That's precisely where you can turn to something like Squarespace, which makes it so much easier to build the website of your dreams. But even more exciting is Squarespace's 2024 Refresh announcement. A product showcase, the brand says it creates a "new era for entrepreneurs." From new design tools with AI-powered features to enhanced business solutions to bring your business websites to the next level, the goal is to elevate your experiences and those of your visitors or customers. Let's take a closer look.