Should pharma companies consider protecting colours that are key to their products?

In this article, Rebecca Anderson-Smith explores how pharma companies can go about registering colour/ colour combination marks in the UK and EU and to what extent can they actually be enforced.

What is a colour mark?

In the UK and EU, a colour mark is a specific colour or combination of colours which can be used to indicate the origin of goods. This is different from a logo in colour, which will have a particular design. Instead, what is protected is the particular shades of colour and, where there is more than one, the systematic arrangement of the colours in a predetermined and uniform way.

Anderson-Smith considers the particular challenges of registering colour marks and requirements for registration, as well as taking a look at a number of examples from different companies.