紅底鞋不具商標識別性 Christian Louboutin在歐盟法院敗訴
顏色可以註冊成為商標嗎？這沒有一定的答案，因為商標制度本身是屬地主義。在歐盟，商標只有保護文字與圖形；在美國，同樣地，也沒有保護顏色；而在台灣，1997年已修法可以接受顏色的商標申請。實際上，顏色商標的先天識別性較低，單一顏色的識別性也會比組合顏色來得更低。一般而言，消費者對單一顏色的認知只是作為裝飾的一個媒介，在視覺辨別上也有一定的限制，因此，若申請者想要取得顏色/單一顏色商標，建議在申請前先使用商品上，並以大量的廣告宣傳以取得後天識別性。
Is it available to trademark a color? That has no a concrete answer because Trademark Laws differs from place to place. In EU, its laws only protect words and graphs; under US’s trademark’s laws, similarly, it doesn’t include a color(s) as a trademark to be protected legally, while, in 1997, Taiwan amended the trademark laws to accept a color(s) as a trademark.
In fact, Color Trademark has low distinctiveness by nature, moreover, Single Color’s distinctiveness is also much lower than Color’s combination. Normal consumers just consider single color as a tool to decorate, and there is also a limit to recognize colors’ difference visually.
Therefore, if you are the person who plans to file a color trademark, we recommend you to use the color on your products first, and then to advertise them in large quantities to acquire the distinctiveness before you take the filing action.
