how do you trademark a color

has fluke done this? they either haven't or it's completely ineffective judging by the number of color mimicking multimeters out there
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@Felthry You can trademark a color by claiming that your brand is distinguished by it. Coca Cola's red, McDonald's yellow, UPS's brown, Tiffany's blue - all of these are trademarked.

@lorxus you'd think Fluke would have trademarked their signature yellow and grey then?
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@Felthry Probably! But I imagine that doesn't stop (for instance) Chinese firms from cheerfully violating that trademark.

@Tathar @lorxus that links to an entire manual, what specifically?
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@Tathar @lorxus this isn't a way in which it usually breaks things but it seems to be
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@Tathar @Felthry Right, so - you can't copyright a *color*, technically, but you *can* (and corps *do*) copyright, the *use* of a color.

@lorxus @Felthry

Also, according to 1202.05(a), it looks like you can't trademark a color unless you can substantially prove that it has acquired distinctiveness.

@Felthry @lorxus

Maybe the UPS brown because they use it in their slogan, but I associate red as much with Walmart's Sams Cola as with Coca Cola. I wouldn't associate either of the others with any particular color.

@Felthry @lorxus

(Important to note that I'm saying this in the sense of "should be" rather than "is." I also think that orange in the context of peanut butter cups should be considered aesthetic functionality and ineligible for trademark protection because people prefer peanut butter that is colored orange.)

@Felthry IDK, but I'm pretty sure the "cardinal yellow" that post-it notes use is also a trademark.

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