It seems slightly outlandish. Can a company own a color? According to the UK Intellectual Property office, the answer is yes. Pantone 2865C is unique enough to receive trademark protection, on behalf of Cadbury.
The deeper I dug, the more I realized we are surrounded by corporate-owned colors: Tiffany’s blue, certain shades of McDonald’s red and yellow, Mattel’s green and pink (G.I. Joe and Barbie). My first reaction was primal, defensive. How can a company own a color? Something that occurred naturally, long before it ended up on the side of a brown UPS truck or a yellow Caterpillar bulldozer. I wanted to drive a bright red Volkswagen bus to the Supreme Court, throw a thousand Crayola crayons on the marble steps and start shouting.
Then I kept reading, and realized the trademarking efforts are meant to protect usage as it relates to marketing practices. Basically, the rulings are carefully weighed and leveled to ensure that businesses who use a particular hue in an effort to grow their revenue, and ours, by way of job creation, taxes, and so on, are not doing so in vain.
Then I realized the whole thing basically protects our business. After all, that’s what we do: market other businesses using unique concept, color and design.
Needless to say, I averted an emotional roller-coaster-of-a-trip to our Nation’s Capitol, and instead went to CVS and bought a crap load of Cadbury eggs, to last the next few years.