wwwtesting - blue

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Moving discussion to kde-www.
If you're not familiar with earlier messages on this subject I'll be 
hapy to repost them here.

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At 07:56 -0500 29/01/03, Mirko Boehm wrote about Re: wwwtesting - blue:

|<quote who="Christoph Cullmann">
|...
|> Éric Bischoff <e.bischoff at noos.fr>:
|>> I'm not 100% sure. First reaction in the French team was: "Why did
|>> they copy the Microsoft site?"
|>
|> Fine ;) Now we have the 2 opposite opinions, could the board clear up
|> (perhaps  with dre) if we now can use that colors ?
|Ha, now everybody is gone crazy :-)
|
|If the e.V. board starts to decide stuff like this, half of the members
|will immidiately cancel their memberships.

We need to move this discussion to kde-www /kde-promo

|My p e r s o n a l opinion:
|
|1) A color is a color is a color. No legal consequences.

Sorry not true, in the Netherlands like in Germany some colors are 
trademarked and can not be use by organizations or corporations. If 
KDE does does not want to get into trouble it's wise to start 
educating itself.


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Farbenschutz in Deutschland, Oesterreich, den Vereinigten Staaten und 
Japan - eine rechtsvergleichende Studie

Protection of a color under the law of Germany, Austria, the United 
States and Japan

http://www.arcs.ac.at/dissdb/rn034135

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very useful PDF (english)
http://www.ksnh.com/schutzrechte/property_rights07.pdf

Even more useful PDF: (english)
http://www.kenyon.com/pdf/color.pdf
<quote>
Thus, referring back to the opening hypothetical, a client with a yellow-orange
color may, theoretically, obtain a Community Trademark over her use 
of the color on computers provided she submits proof of public 
familiarity. Even so, only certain EU members might enforce it. 
Germany , France, Italy and England protect color marks, whereas 
Spain  and Portugal offer less liberal protections or colors. German 
law specifically covers "other forms including colours and 
combinations of colours." German Trademark Act, § 3(1). Though 
Germany has always protected colored picture marks, the 
Bundesgerichtshof, Germany's Federal Supreme Court, finally 
recognized color per se in 1998. Federal Supreme Court, 1999 GRUR 
491, 30 IIC 809 (1999)- Farbmarke gelb/schwarz (reversing Federal 
Patent Court, 1996 GRUR 881).
Here, the applicant wanted to register a color , "the colors RAL 1 
1018 (yellow) and RAL 9 004(black)," but the German Patent Office 
rejected the application believing color in the abstract could not be 
protected. The Bundesgerichtshof looked at Germany's Trademark Act, 
the EU Trademark Directive, the Office for Harmonization's Orange 
decision, and German court decisions to finally hold that color per 
se is protectable in Germany .
</quote>

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