T-Mobile Now Owns the Color Pink

A federal court has granted the telecoms giant the rights to its own shade of magenta

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Jason Alden / Bloomberg via Getty Images

Ballet shoes, roses, and sunsets had better watch out.

A federal court has handed T-Mobile the rights to its distinctive magenta trademark color, shutting out AT&T subsidiary Aio Wireless from using the color, T-Mobile said in a statement Saturday.

The two companies got into a legal battle after Aio Wireless used the color magenta to compete with T-Mobile, and months of wrangling have now resulted in T-Mobile being granted the right to magenta, instead of Aio.

In a complaint last August, T-Mobile said that after it set up a no-contract service to compete with dominant wireless provider AT&T, its rival responded “by setting up a wholly owned subsidiary, Aio, which—out of all the colors in the universe—chose magenta” to promote its own new, competing no-contract service. 

Granted, the implications of the case likely don’t extend much beyond telecommunications companies offering similar services, but it does mean that T-Mobile’s use of magenta is protected by trademark law. Lovers of pink may have to lay low for a while.