CLIENT WANTS to launch a new product globally, a luminous yellow-orange colored computer and monitor, the color being her only innovation. As of 1995, she could register and protect her use of yellow-orange on computers in the United States. Since 1998 she could also register the color per se, that is, the color in the abstract disassociated from any packaging, design or subject matter, in Germany and several other European countries. But elsewhere in Europe, she may find it difficult to secure any protection because many countries still only protect color combinations.
The disparity over legal protection for color complicates the client’s attempt to obtain global trademark protection, while also posing significant obstacles to any attempt to harmonize international trademark laws. The caution exercised by the United States in granting color protection should serve as a model for other countries and for harmonizing trademark laws.
