Two recent developments in Australia highlight the difficulties
that are involved in protecting and enforcing colour. The first is
the news that BP's Australian trade mark application for the
colour green (Pantone 348C) for both petroleum products and service
stations was rejected by the trade mark authorities, on the basis
that BP failed to prove that the colour had become distinctive of
the company's goods and services - in other words, BP failed to
establish the acquired distinctiveness that you need to establish
when you try to monopolise something as ordinary as a single
colour.
The second is the news that Telstra, the producer of the Yellow
Pages directory in Australia, failed in its passing off case
against another company that uses the colour yellow in relation to
print directories, as well as on its website and app. The court
made a number of findings. It found that the colour yellow is
generic in the context of directories, and that it simply signifies
a
