Purple Prose

Two weeks ago, Cadbury obtained copyright protection for its use of the colour purple [specifically, Pantone shade 2685c]

This has caused a lot of debate [here and here]The particular victim is the “Meaningful Chocolate Company” [website here]

This small company, who only sell Fair Trade Chocolate have been advised to redesign the wrappings for their Christmas chocolates.

These are designed to hang on the tree, and have images from the biblical nativity story on them. In previous years, they’ve been purple, now they are scarlet.

The company chose purple because that is the ecclesiastical colour representing Advent – and as they are aimed at the ‘Christian’ market, it seemed appropriate. But Company Lawyers have advised they could be sued, because Joe Public will think he is buying a Cadbury product. An MCC company spokesman said

“We believe there was little chance of confusion. Our box of Meaningful Christmas Tree Decorations are very different from Cadbury’s own decorations in a number of ways. Our chocolate is Fairtrade, Cadbury’s is not. A charitable donation is made from every sale, Cadbury’s do not do this. We have Jesus, Mary and characters on the front of our box and a copy of the Christmas story inside, Cadbury have a mostly white box with a snowman on the front and secular tree decorations in a plastic cover. The reason we use purple is that it has been used for centuries by the church during advent…. but apparently no longer…it appears that the association is now with Cadbury.”

There are many shades of purple to choose from

I would imagine that Cadbury will not sue our Rector if he puts a purple cloth on the altar or pulpit during Advent, but I can see why lawyers are concerned that ‘purple wrappings on chocolate’ are a different case.

I am sorry that the MCC have had to change their design. But on the other hand, the patent application has been in process since 2004, and when I visited Cadbury World in 2009, I remember they told us then that they were trying to copyright the colour ‘to prevent other confectionery companies using it’. They even told us the Pantone Number! As the MCC was only founded two years ago, surely somebody there should have been alert to the goings-on in the chocolate world? And anyway, not all of us Christians have this thing about times, seasons and colouring! I noticed last Sunday that St Barts have their green altar cloth in place, because we are currently in ‘Ordinary Time’ [a term which amuses me whenever I think about it, even though I know it does not mean ‘mundane’ but ‘ordinal’]

Is it right to copyright a colour? [Tiffany Blue, Louboutin Red…] I would not want to go to court over this one – how do you decide what is black and white in this issue? it is definitely a situation where there not only fifty shades of purple, but also fifty shades of grey!