The color brown?
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I just got an email from UPS. The email was unimportant, but the disclaimer at the end was excellent:
<font size="2" face="arial"><font size="1">© 2008 United Parcel Service of America, Inc. UPS, the UPS brandmark, and the color brown are trademarks of United Parcel Service of America, Inc. All rights reserved.</font></font>
Really? UPS has a trademark on the color brown?
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Dunno about the rest of the world but here in merry old europe that means that no other packet delivery service can use that specific shade of brown. How broad a range the trademark protects i don't know, perhaps that will be up to a judge when it actually comes to that.
However if you want to start a bakery with that shade of brown in your logo, no problem. Just as long as the logo doesn't resemble the UPS logo. You could even call your bakery UPS if you like, just as long as you don't start making packet deliveries.In other words, a european trademark can be on anything that isn't in common use. But a trademark is confined to its own sector.
And there are a LOT of companies that have trademarked their colours.
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@jjeff1 said:
Really? UPS has a trademark on the color brown?
Insofar as it relates to package shipping, yes. But it's not all browns, it's their brown. In the US, see Qualitex v. Jacobson Products.
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@stratos said:
Dunno about the rest of the world but here in merry old europe that means that no other packet delivery service can use that specific shade of brown.
That's about how it works in the US, too.
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Caterpillar has similar protection for their yellow.
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@jjeff1 said:
<FONT size="2" face="arial"><FONT size="1">© 2008 United Parcel Service of America, Inc. UPS, the UPS brandmark, and the color brown are trademarks of United Parcel Service of America, Inc. All rights reserved.</FONT></FONT>
Really? UPS has a trademark on the color brown?
The same holds for the [url=http://www.deutschepost.de/]Deusche Post[/url]. I once coded an app for them and got the order to have it styled to match their corporate identity. Guess what the color code for their official yellow is? If you expect of something really fine-tuned, guess again! It's #ffcc00. As simple as that, and trademarked.
Incidentally, I later had to remove the yellow again, because the worker's council decided that staring at a yellow screen is too much strain for the eyes.. (no kidding)
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@taylonr said:
Caterpillar has similar protection for their yellow.
Communists have similar protection for the color red.
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Cadbury tried to sue Darrell Lea over the use of the colour purple, [url=http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,18951715-643,00.html]link[/url]. It doesn't seem to difficult to expect that UPS would try to protect their colour brown.
I belive that you can be punished in America if you have your car painted [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_bus_yellow]School Bus Yellow[/url].
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@Jedaz said:
I belive that you can be punished in America if you have your car painted School Bus Yellow.
That's a silly thing to believe, considering it's not even remotely true.
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@bstorer said:
@Jedaz said:
I belive that you can be punished in America if you have your car painted School Bus Yellow.
That's a silly thing to believe, considering it's not even remotely true.Actually in many states (not Virginia) it is illegal for anything other than a school bus to be painted "National School Bus Yellow". However, this is for safety reasons and has nothing to do with trademarks.
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@morbiuswilters said:
Hmmm, you're right. I checked the federal statutes and saw nothing. I didn't consider checking a backwards state like Illinois.@bstorer said:
@Jedaz said:
I belive that you can be punished in America if you have your car painted School Bus Yellow.
That's a silly thing to believe, considering it's not even remotely true.Actually in many states (not Virginia) it is illegal for anything other than a school bus to be painted "National School Bus Yellow". However, this is for safety reasons and has nothing to do with trademarks.
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@bstorer said:
I didn't consider checking a backwards state like Illinois.
Virginia is like the Hungary of America. They probably don't even care if school busses get turned into flaming rubble. Well, at least all the children on the bus will be armed with assault rifles so we know they will be able to defend themselves against terrorists hijacking the bus.
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@morbiuswilters said:
Better the Hungary of America than the Slovenia of America, like Illinois. Also, you forgot to mention that all of our buses have "NO QUEERS ALOWED" [sic] painted on them. Hey, you might know: are the buses in Massachusetts rainbow colored, or do they just go with bare metal because it's more eco-friendly?@bstorer said:
I didn't consider checking a backwards state like Illinois.
Virginia is like the Hungary of America. They probably don't even care if school busses get turned into flaming rubble. Well, at least all the children on the bus will be armed with assault rifles so we know they will be able to defend themselves against terrorists hijacking the bus.
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@TheDude said:
Communists have similar protection for the color red.
In Soviet Russia, the color red protects you!
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@jjeff1 said:
Really? UPS has a trademark on the color brown?
It's actually "Pullman Brown." The color was originally licsenced from the Pullman Coach? Company when UPS was still a start-up.
Corporate legend has it the during that time, the brown on the Pullman train coaches inspired a sense of reliability. Hence those
god-awful brown trucks.
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@Jedaz said:
Cadbury tried to sue Darrell Lea over the use of the colour purple, link. It doesn't seem to difficult to expect that UPS would try to protect their colour brown.
I was going to post that one too ;)
Cadbury's purple is <font color="#3b0084">RGB 3b0084</font> in hexadecimal if you care ;)
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@jjeff1 said:
Really? UPS has a trademark on the color brown?
T-Mobile did the same with magenta (RAL 4010) (at least in Europe) ...
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And Nazis also reserved their tone of brown for themselves.
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In Germany taxis used to have a tone of beige which was also kind of reserved for them. Don't know if this was forbidden for non-taxi cars but at least not many people wanted their car painted in beige.
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@morbiuswilters said:
Actually in many states (not Virginia) it is illegal for anything other than a school bus to be painted "National School Bus Yellow". However, this is for safety reasons and has nothing to do with trademarks.
I'll bite. What possible safety reason could there be for this?
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@Random832 said:
@morbiuswilters said:
I'm going out on a limb here, but maybe to avoid people painting their own vehicles school bus yellow and trying to pick up children? I really don't know. It seems a stupid, stupid law to me. The sort you see in third-world states like Illinois.Actually in many states (not Virginia) it is illegal for anything other than a school bus to be painted "National School Bus Yellow". However, this is for safety reasons and has nothing to do with trademarks.
I'll bite. What possible safety reason could there be for this?
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@Random832 said:
I'll bite. What possible safety reason could there be for this?
Uh, perhaps not allowing people to drive around in psuedo school busses?
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@bstorer said:
The sort you see in third-world states like Illinois.
Well, to be fair, there are a lot of pedophiles driving around in school busses in Illinois trying to pick up children. Someone had to do something!
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@bstorer said:
I'm going out on a limb here, but maybe to avoid people painting their own vehicles school bus yellow and trying to pick up children?
Because children are so much more likely to realize something is amiss based on the exact shade of yellow than, you know, the fact that it's not a bus. I'd actually assumed the purported reason was so people driving cars would know it's a school bus (rather than, you know, the fact that you only have to treat school buses differently on the road when they've got their red lights flashing, and if you're close enough to identify the exact shade you ought to damn well be able to tell from the shape that it's a school bus.)
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@Random832 said:
exact shade of yellow than
It has nothing to do with the exact shade of yellow.
You cannot have a bus that looks like a school bus, and you cannot have a car that looks like a police car.
Why is that hard to understand?
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@Random832 said:
I'll bite. What possible safety reason could there be for this?
The color is specifically designed to be seen in the low light of morning. Most school buses don't have seatbelts. The yellow color allows drivers to identify a school bus from far away and take precautions. If the color yellow were allowed on vehicles that weren't school buses then drivers would take them less seriously. Also, you're incorrect about the laws regarding school buses. There are many, many laws drivers are expected to follow around school buses besides stopping when the sign is out. Obviously they vary by state.
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@morbiuswilters said:
@Random832 said:
I'll bite. What possible safety reason could there be for this?
The color is specifically designed to be seen in the low light of morning. Most school buses don't have seatbelts. The yellow color allows drivers to identify a school bus from far away and take precautions.
If you're close enough to identify that exact shade of yellow against any other shade of yellow which cars are permitted to be painted, you're close enough to actually see that it's a bus.
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@MasterPlanSoftware said:
@Random832 said:
exact shade of yellow than
It has nothing to do with the exact shade of yellow.
You cannot have a bus that looks like a school bus, and you cannot have a car that looks like a police car.
Why is that hard to understand?
Because that's not what they said, what they said was that no vehicle (implied: also means vehicles that are not buses) may be painted in National School Bus Yellow (which is presumably an exact shade, since it's clearly legal for cars to be painted in other yellow colors)
Also, it's clearly legal to buy a Crown Victoria, and it's clearly legal to have it painted black (which is the case for many police cars) - I believe it's also not illegal to have it in a two-tone black and white paint job, etc. What you're NOT allowed to do is have the word "POLICE" on it, or have flashing red and blue lights. (for the same reason, whenever a school bus is not being used as a school bus, it must not have the word "SCHOOL" on the panels on the front and back. That's very different from saying no vehicle may be painted the same color.)
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@Random832 said:
If you're close enough to identify that exact shade of yellow against any other shade of yellow which cars are permitted to be painted, you're close enough to actually see that it's a bus.
The shade of yellow is meant to stand out in low light. It attracts your attention. Yes, you can have other vehicles painted yellow but each state has its own regulations and if your yellow is close enough to School Bus Yellow you can be fined. That's why automakers have very distinct shades of yellow and a lot of body shops won't paint anything too close to SBY. Your "you can see it's a bus" thing is bullshit. What if someone buys an old school bus or some charter company paints their buses yellow? The point is that when you see a large, distinctively yellow bus it grabs your attention and should result in you being more cautious. Stop trying to argue with this. You sound like a moron.
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@Random832 said:
Also, it's clearly legal to buy a Crown Victoria, and it's clearly legal to have it painted black (which is the case for many police cars) - I believe it's also not illegal to have it in a two-tone black and white paint job, etc. What you're NOT allowed to do is have the word "POLICE" on it, or have flashing red and blue lights. (for the same reason, whenever a school bus is not being used as a school bus, it must not have the word "SCHOOL" on the panels on the front and back. That's very different from saying no vehicle may be painted the same color.)
If your car looks like a police car, and they can prove you went through extra measures to make your car look like a police car (no one is talking about buying a black crown vic here), you open yourself up to potential legal action.
Otherwise, I don't think you understand the concept here and are just arguing based on semantics. Please just let it go.
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You are allowed to purchase a Crown Vic. You're allowed to paint it two-tone. You're allowed to put the word POLICE on the side. You're allowed to put a light-bar on top. You're allowed to install a radio in it. You're allowed to install the aftermarket performance packages that police cruisers use (state emissions standards withstanding). You're then allowed to legally tag and drive the car on public roads. You are NOT allowed to try and pull somebody over. You are NOT allowed to break any civil or federal laws in your fancypants fakey police car.
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@insta said:
You are allowed to purchase a Crown Vic. You're allowed to paint it two-tone. You're allowed to put the word POLICE on the side. You're allowed to put a light-bar on top. You're allowed to install a radio in it. You're allowed to install the aftermarket performance packages that police cruisers use (state emissions standards withstanding). You're then allowed to legally tag and drive the car on public roads.
Go ahead and try that.
You open yourself up for all sorts of legal problems. And in many (if not most) areas you can be charged with imitating an officer.
Here is an example: http://www.co.clatsop.or.us/Assets/Dept_6/PDF/15%20Prohibition%20Against%20Imitating%20Law%20Enforcement%20Uniforms.pdf
So no, you can't imitate an officer, at least not legally. I don't know where you got that idea, but it is definitely false.
Just because some guy in some town somewhere might have gotten away with it, doesn't mean you can do it.
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Argh, this looks to be a state-by-state thing.
It's been done before: http://www.boston.com/news/odd/articles/2008/03/12/vegas_man_paints_car_like_police_cruiser/, but that was Nevada. You cite Oregon, where rules clearly are different. I'll concede that.
Additionally, nowhere in my post did I say it was a GOOD idea, just that it was possible. I'm sure plenty of green cops will ticket the bejesus out of you if you were to slap a lightbar on a black car.
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@insta said:
Hm... someone got away with doing a Mad Max "police" car, but it is painted in a way obvious enough to not be confused with an actual squad car. Even like this, I think the flashy "police" light could've been fine-worthy, though.You are allowed to purchase a Crown Vic. You're allowed to paint it two-tone. You're allowed to put the word POLICE on the side. You're allowed to put a light-bar on top. You're allowed to install a radio in it. You're allowed to install the aftermarket performance packages that police cruisers use (state emissions standards withstanding). You're then allowed to legally tag and drive the car on public roads. You are NOT allowed to try and pull somebody over. You are NOT allowed to break any civil or federal laws in your fancypants fakey police car.
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@morbiuswilters said:
The point is that when you see a large, distinctively yellow bus it grabs your attention and should result in you being more cautious. Stop trying to argue with this. You sound like a moron.
If the bus is close enough that you have to be especially cautious, and you can't tell it's a school bus except by the color, you shouldn't be driving.
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@SuperousOxide said:
If the bus is close enough that you have to be especially cautious, and you can't tell it's a school bus except by the color, you shouldn't be driving.
Really? I shouldn't be driving anymore then because it gets foggy here.
Certainly nice to know definitively that I am approaching a school bus ahead as opposed to a RV or something, where my behavior may need to be very different.
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@SuperousOxide said:
@morbiuswilters said:
The point isn't to identify the bus by its color, the point is to grab your attention with a bright, not often used color. Because a school bus makes frequent stops to pick up and drop off children (who may or may not have to cross the street), I know I should be more careful around that god-awful color.The point is that when you see a large, distinctively yellow bus it grabs your attention and should result in you being more cautious. Stop trying to argue with this. You sound like a moron.
If the bus is close enough that you have to be especially cautious, and you can't tell it's a school bus except by the color, you shouldn't be driving.
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@WeatherGod said:
The point isn't to identify the bus by its color, the point is to grab your attention with a bright, not often used color. Because a school bus makes frequent stops to pick up and drop off children (who may or may not have to cross the street), I know I should be more careful around that god-awful color.
Hey, someone who isn't a total fuckwit! Thanks, WeatherGod! Also, I'd like to point out that school buses rarely have seatbelts. Add in frequent stops, early mornings when the sun is low and there is fog and a bunch of small children and you have a recipe for disaster.
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@morbiuswilters said:
Add in frequent stops, early mornings when the sun is low and there is fog and a bunch of small children and you have a recipe for disaster.
Also add in the aggressive nature of many rush-hour drivers, as well as the level of attention of those who haven't had their 2nd coffee for the morning. If people were allowed to have vehicles with SBY (or something close to it), then we would become complacent when we see it, and its attention-grabbing ability would be diminished. If anybody is still thinking that you don't have to be careful around a bus-looking vehicle that is slightly off-shade from SBY, you are a retard.@morbiuswilters said:
Hey, someone who isn't a total fuckwit!
Thanks... I think...
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You sure you want to join that club
<a href="http://forums.thedailywtf.com/forums/members/WeatherGod.aspx">WeatherGod</a>? being called a fuckwit by MSP and Morbiuswithers is kinda a badge of honour many wear with pride.</p>
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@matterific said:
You sure you want to join that club
<a href="http://forums.thedailywtf.com/forums/members/WeatherGod.aspx">WeatherGod</a>? being called a fuckwit by MSP and Morbiuswithers is kinda a badge of honour many wear with pride.</p></blockquote>Why did you make "WeatherGod" into a link that doesn't work?
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@bstorer said:
@matterific said:
You sure you want to join that club
<a href="http://forums.thedailywtf.com/forums/members/WeatherGod.aspx">WeatherGod</a>? being called a fuckwit by MSP and Morbiuswithers is kinda a badge of honour many wear with pride.</p><p></blockquote>Why did you make "WeatherGod" into a link that doesn't work?</blockquote></p><p>Pretty sure he answered that in his second sentence... thing. The first letter isn't capitalized so I don't know if it's supposed to be a new sentence or some kind of dangling clause. </p>
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