Print
Discuss
Send to friend
RSS feedsOrange has begun a court action against soon-to-be-launched mobile service easyMobile.com, over use of the colour orange in its branding.
EasyMobile has dismissed the action, however, claiming that Orange is just "afraid" of the competition.
"After six months of negotiations with EasyMobile, we have been unable to secure a commitment from them not to infringe our rights regarding the use of the colour orange," said Orange.
"Our brand and the rights associated with it are extremely important to us. In the absence of any firm commitment from easyMobile, we have been left with no choice but to start an action for trademark infringement and 'passing off'."
But Frank Rasmussen, UK chief executive at easyMobile, has hit back, saying: "We are extremely surprised by this court claim because we have never used the colour orange in a way that would confuse our customers, and nor do we intend to.
"I believe this is very simple. Orange is afraid of what is going to happen when we launch in the British market."
EasyMobile is a partnership between Telmore UK Ltd and the easyGroup. The service is modelled on the Danish mobile service launched in 2001 by Telmore which uses the internet as its only sales and distribution channel.
See also:
New service lets users research gigs, buy tickets and download singles 31 Mar 2005
A third of mobile users don't keep a separate record of important numbers 22 Feb 2005
Users will accept limited functionality to save on pocket space 21 Feb 2005
Mobile operator to switch on UK 3G network this week 06 Dec 2004All Mobile Communications
del.icio.us
Digg this
reddit!
