T-Mobile has filed a lawsuit against AT&T's prepaid subsidiary, AIO Wireless, for choosing a color in its logo that is almost identical to T-Mo's famous magenta color trademark.
Amid several lawsuits filed across the wireless telecom industry, T-Mobile's latest one stands out. The U.S. carrier has sued its rival's prepaid subsidiary AIO Wireless over trademark infringement and unfair business practices. These may be big words to describe the actual lawsuit of T-Mobile. The carrier has accused AIO Wireless of using a shade too similar in its logo, not even the same, to its famous magenta color trademark.
In the lawsuit, T-Mobile claims that AIO is deliberately using a similar shade of color to lure its customers into buying AIO's wireless plans without two-year contracts.
"In early 2013, T-Mobile publicly disclosed plans to compete against the incumbent telecommunications providers in a new way: by offering telecommunications services without the need for consumers to enter into a two-year or annual service contract," T-Mobile said in its suit, reports AllThingsD. "The dominant telecommunications provider, AT&T, responded by setting up a wholly owned subsidiary, Aio, which - out of all of the colors in the universe - chose magenta to begin promoting no-contract wireless communications services in direct competition with T-Mobile. AT&T's subsidiary's use of magenta to attract T-Mobile customers is likely to dilute T-Mobile's famous magenta color trademark, and to create initial interest confusion as to the source or affiliation of AT&T's subsidiary's business."
But in a very precise statement, AIO's spokeswoman Kathy Van Buskirk said that their company was very far off from using T-Mobile's magenta.
"T-Mobile needs an art lesson," she said. "Aio doesn't do magenta."
T-Mobile's CEO, John Legere is so upset with AT&T for using a similar color that he even took to Twitter to mock at the U.S. carrier. Along with his sarcastic tweet, Legere tweeted a picture of a crayon box with only magenta colored pencils in it.
Here is the Crayon box that @ATT must have been using :) pic.twitter.com/9SG5b3Ztse
- John Legere (@john_legere) August 28, 2013
Let us know in the comments below what you think of T-Mo's decision to sue AIO.
