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by badrequest 477 days ago
It seems utterly absurd to me that anybody should be able to issue a copyright claim on a collection of colors and fonts. Copyrights are issued to logos and slogans, not design systems.
3 comments

It seems utterly absurd to me we litigate the ownership of ideas or their expressions, but here we are.

The founder of Bikram Yoga, tried to copyright a sequence of yoga poses, even though similar sequences have existed for for thousands of years. Monster, the energy drink maker, went after business for using the word "monster" in totally unrelated contexts. Disney trademarked "Hakuna Matata" (a Swahili phrase roughly equivalent to "no worries") after using it in The Lion King, prohibiting African businesses from using a common idiom in their own damn language. Don't get me started on Happy Fucking Birthday.

If you think that sucks, check out T Mobile trademarking magenta https://www.npr.org/2019/11/25/782723429/t-mobiles-parent-te...
Cadbury and purple...

These colours are their trademarks but I believe they don't own the colour in all domains.. probably just food? If you wanted to make a car company logo that colour you'd be ok?

No, trademarks are issued to logos and slogans.
Yes, but many logos are also copyrightable.