T-Mobile Wins against Aio Wireless on Magenta Trademark

T-Mobile wins in a patent war against AT&T's subsidiary Aio Wireless involving its magenta trademark.

Three months after the official launch of Aio Wireless, T-Mobile filed a patent law suit against it for infringing its trademark color magenta. In the case filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, T-Mobile accused AT&T on intentionally choosing the color magenta in the promotion of its prepaid wireless communications services.

Aside from using the color in its logo, the Georgia-based Aio Wireless also used the color in its marketing and advertising materials, and on its giant coverage map.

A spokesperson for Aio Wireless, on the other hand, denied allegations and told The Consumerist, "T-Mobile needs an art lesson. Aio doesn't do magenta."

After three days of court hearing, PC Magazine reported that U.S. District Court judge Lee Rosenthal came to a decision favoring T-Mobile.

"The record is clear that Aio wanted to capture T-Mobile customers. Through consumer-survey analysis and through Aio's own focus-group testing, T-Mobile has presented credible evidence that Aio's use of broad swathc of blocks of Aio plum is likely to, and at least in some instances, actually did, in fact, intend to cause confusion by its use of a similar color to T-Mobile's," Rosenthal said in his ruling.

"The continued use of large blocks of plum is likely to cause irreparable harm to the good will and brand identity that T-Mobile has spent billions of dollars creating since it arrived in the United States."

As a result, Rosenthal prohibits Aio wireless from using the color or any tone close to "Pantone 676C" as a part of any of its business and advertising.

In a statement, T-Mobile said that they are very happy with Rosenthal's court ruling.

T-Mobile is recognized by its subscribers through its signature color, which is Magenta. The company incorporates the color with their advertising and marketing materials around the globe, for more than two decades now.