Incredible, but true. For 25 years, the German group Deutsche Telekom (DT) was the owner of the trademark on the colors pink and magenta in the field of financial services in France and in other European countries.
The court decision of December 15, 2020 changes the situation: the French authorities considered "that there is no evidence of serious use of this mark for the challenged services" by Deutsche Telekom, confirming that "the owner of the contested mark should therefore be deprived of his rights".
Led by Lemonade in Germany, this tug-of-war began in June 2019, when Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile's parent company) proclaimed that its dominance over the color pink extended to insurance, and obtained a court order for Lemonade to remove the offending color from all its German assets.
Lemonade made color changes in Germany, but it also undertook to challenge the scope of its "magenta" mark, starting with France and Germany, as well as the very validity of its "magenta" mark across Europe.
France is the first to make a decision. "The French decision marks a turning point in the fight to end the exploitation of trademarks by Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile" said Daniel Schreiber, CEO and co-founder of Lemonade.
He adds: "In the past few years, DT has banned the use of pink by a tech blog in the U.S.; a future watchmaker seeking crowdfunding on Indiegogo; a bill processor in Holland; and a nine-person computer store in England. It's crazy. When they tried to extend their monopoly on pink to the insurance industry, we felt it was time to fight back. If some genius at Deutsche Telekom had invented the color, their possessiveness would be justified. This not being the case, the company's actions resemble bullying tactics, where legions of lawyers try to take over natural resources - in this case a primary color - that rightfully belong to everyone.
