Engadget came out swinging when it received a trademark infringement demand letter from Deutsche Telekom (which owns T-Mobile). The demand letter suggests that Engadget’s use of the magenta color for its “imobile” section is a violation of Deutsche Telekom’s trademark rights in the color magenta for T-mobile and requests the company stop using the color.

Engadget regularly receives mail from disgruntled companies, primarily pertaining to Engadget’s reviews of certain electronic products, but this letter made Engadget see, uh, magenta, and it responded by posting the letter on the website, and inviting its readers to comment. Moreover, the letter appears to have enraged the company sufficiently that now it is using its trademark in a way that actually could be confusing.

Practice Note: Posting of demand letters by their recipients is nothing new; indeed, this blog has made several references to the practice in the past. Nevertheless, it is a reminder to attorneys to advise clients that demands can be made public. The mere fact that a demand letter might be posted should not deter a client with strong rights, but it may color the tone of the communication. In addition, attorneys want to guide their clients through the legal elements of the claims asserted in a demand, as well as the ramifications of those claims in the court of public opinion. In some cases, if the rights held are thin and the potential backlash is significant, perhaps a well-placed phone call is warranted.

This entry was posted by Tsan Abrahamson on Tuesday, April 1st, 2008 at 12:53 pm and is filed under Trademarks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.