Colour in branding

Member lesson

Owning a colour in a category

Lesson 10 of 11 in Colour in branding.

What Is A Color Trademark | Minute Law | Spear IP · The Legal Apothecary
Lesson

The legal side, from Cadbury's purple to Louboutin's red sole, is covered in "Trademarked colours". This lesson is about the design work that comes years before any filing. A brand owns a colour in practice once buyers in its category pick it out by that colour without reading anything, and no registry decides that.

shapecolourmarktypetaglinerecognised with the name covered upan asset nobody can name without help is not one yet
Five brand assets ranked by how many people recognise them without the name.
A doodle of three stacked supermarket shelves where rival packs change colour each time while one orange pack stays the same, and a shopper reaches for it on the bottom shelf.
The same aisle over three years: rival packs keep changing colour, one brand keeps the same orange every time, and shoppers learn that the orange belongs to it.
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  1. Question 1, locked

    A start-up applies to register its brand colour as a trade mark on launch day. What does the lesson predict?

    • It will be approved, as early filing beats rivals
    • It is paying for a refusal
    • It will win if the colour is unusual enough
    • It will get a narrow registration to build on
  2. Question 2, locked

    A founder loves a hue that suits the brief perfectly but is difficult to reproduce on their main packaging material. Is it a good colour to try to own?

    • Yes, because a hard colour is hard for rivals to copy
    • Yes, as long as it is far from a competitor's colour
    • No, because owning a colour means never varying it
    • No, because only functional colours can be owned
  3. Question 3, locked

    Buyers in its category pick a brand out by its colour without reading anything, but the colour was never registered. What does the lesson say?

    • It owns the colour in practice, and no registry decides that
    • It owns nothing at all until a registry accepts the colour
    • It must register now or it will lose the buyers' recognition
    • Its years of use count for nothing without a trade mark

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