The increasingly rapacious and reactionary corporate attitude to intellectual property rights has been the subject of several posts over at Scenarios and Strategy (c.f., e.g., “Patently Absurd…,”Caution! Pile up ahead…,” or “I was aiming for my foot, but I seem to have shot myself in the thigh…“)
Now an update for readers who might feel the urge to deliver a present in just any light blue box, or who might fancy a certain shade of orange… Tiffany Blue and Home Depot Orange are trademark-protected– “colormarked”– hues.
Qualitex Press Pad
It all started in 1989. Qualitex used the unique color blend illustrated above for their dry cleaning presses. But then competitor Jacobson began using the same shade, allegedly to more easily confuse companies into buying their product instead. Qualitex sued, won– and colormarking was born.
Readers will find a list of 10 privately-owned colors at Mental Floss‘ “10 Trademarked Colors.”
As we discard a number of our crayons, just to be on the safe side, we might recall that it was on this date in 1981 that the extraordinary Canadian athlete Arnie Boldt jumped 6′ 8.25″ at the Tribune Games outside of Winnipeg, breaking his own record for long jump in disabled competition. Boldt, who’d lost his right leg in a grain auger accident at the age of three, burst onto the parasports scene at the 1976 Paralympics, where he took gold and set records in both the long and the high jumps. He raised his high jump record at the next Paralympics in 1980, then raised both records in 1981.
Arnie Boldt in the long jump (source: Canadian Sports Hall of Fame)
