The color of a brand is different from a color trademark. Even though a trade mark or registered symbol may appear on a brand’s image, it does not mean there are any legal rights to the color or colors.
The trade mark and registered marks on the Mc Donald’s means that the company has claimed rights to the image (the symbol or word or combination of both).The registered mark protects the brand image – not the color or color combination. In other words, the same yellow and red colors as McDonald’s can be used in one’s business. However one will be in trouble if one used the same design with their business name.
A color trademark is different. In this case, the color is the brand. The use of the color in a market sector is protected by trademark. For example, when you see a turquoise box for jewelry, you know it’s from Tiffany & Co.
Until the 1980s, U.S. law refused to recognize a single color as a brand. However, color combinations, had long been protectable. This changed when Owens-Corning launched the “Think Pink” campaign for its fiberglass building insulation. In 1985, a U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington ruled that the company had the right to prevent others from using pink for insulation. Years later, in another case, the U.S. Supreme Court reiterated that a single color can indeed be a brand, so long as the public strongly associates the color and the specific product and that the color is in no way functional.
Color trademarks apply to unique situations because it’s not possible to permit every business to own “their color” today. Otherwise there would be “color depletion” as there are limited numbers of colors.
One of the basic principles of color trademark laws in the US is that a functional color cannot be trademarked. In other words, if a company makes lawn mowers, they can’t “own” green because green is the color of lawns and is therefore a functional color.
