[cc-licenses] OT: Colour
Rob Myers
rob at robmyers.org
Tue Feb 13 18:38:55 EST 2007
Peter Brink wrote:
> Antoine skrev:
>> Le mardi 13 février 2007 à 21:31 +0000, Rob Myers a écrit :
>>> Mike Linksvayer wrote:
>>>
>>>> Tango uses BY-SA for icons and the base palette is in the public domain.
>>>>
>>>> http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Desktop_Project
>>> Can palettes be copyrighted? Does it make a difference if they are an
>>> analogue set of samples or as structured data?
>> Regardless of copyright, at least one colour has been patented: the
>> "International Klein Blue".
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Klein_Blue
>>
> It's not the colour as such that has been patented, its the medium, the
> pigment itself that has been patented. Since chemical compounds can be
> patented that is not a strange thing.
I've tried to track down the IKB patent but to no avail. The number
usually given for the patent doesn't show up in the French patent
database, and there are no useful entries for Klein or his collaborator.
In theory, since IKB was a uniquely vivid blue for the time, patenting
the formula would have had the effect of restricting use of that exact
blue to Klein.
Cadbury's have claimed a patent on the color purple in the US.
But these aren't copyrights, so they don't touch on CC licensing. Can
palettes be copyrighted or are they just facts? Pantone claim that you
can't use their colour definition names, but that seems more likely to
be to do with trade description law rather than copyright.
- Rob.
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