Some of you may remember this from February of last year, where Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile had served Aio (at the time, AT&T’s flagship prepaid brand. Before they bought Cricket and merged the two) papers regarding the color they were using in their logo. It was magenta, but not really close to what T-Mobile was using. Alas, Deutsche Telekom does indeed have a trademark on the magenta color, and they are at it again, going after a startup in the UK by the name of Oxy. Back when Aio was forced to change their logo, it was clear that customers could get Aio and T-Mobile confused, since they were both wireless carriers. But with Oxy, not so much.
However, Oxy could sell LTE-enabled smartwatches, and seeing a magenta logo on them could lead customers to believe it’s T-Mobile. While Oxy’s color was close to what T-Mobile is currently using, it isn’t close to what Deutsche Telekom has a trademark on. For those of you wondering, Deutsche Telekom’s patent is on the RAL 4010 color (that’s RGB 188, 64, 119), not even close to what T-Mobile is currently using, which is #e21566 or RGB 226, 21, 102. And Oxy’s color is #e91e63 or RGB 233, 30, 99. But being that Oxy is a startup, they went ahead and changed up their logo, which you can see their new logo colors down below.
Oxy is still planning to launch their smartwatch on Indiegogo later this month. And this actually probably brought more attention to them then their project would have on Indiegogo, so thanks in part to Deutsche Telekom, Oxy might be able to fulfill their goal on Indiegogo. The watch appears to be based on Android Wear, or close to it. The specs of the model do indicate Android Lollipop. Now with this being the company’s first attempt at a smartwatch, it likely will be a bit bulky and tough to use, compared to these other smartwatches on the market now. But it’d still be a great one to check out, we think.
Likely, Oxy won’t be the last company to feel Deutsche Telekom’s wrath over the magenta color, and they definitely weren’t the first.