Are Fountain Pen Ink Manufacturers Legally....

[Patrick L]

Are fountain pen ink manufacturers legally obliged to accurately describe the ink color of their inks when deciding inks' names ?

 

Can "X" company call an ink " Red Zorro" when the ink's color is actually green for example ? I guess that it depends on the country's laws.

 

Is Private Reserve Blue Suede (specially the first version) actually blue ?

 

Take care

Patrick

[cattar]

The meaning of an ink's name is often misunderstood when it's related to something specific about a culture.

 

What color were blue suede shoes? Were they the same color everywhere?

See the posts by K. Cakes and by dcwaites in this thread.

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/247992-private-reserve-blue-suede/

Edited May 12, 2020 by cattar

[white_lotus]

Question A: I doubt it.

Question B: They can probably call it whatever they want.

Question C: I've never bought PR inks, so can't say.

 

The only way FP inks are regulated are for health, safety, environmental concerns, etc. based on the chemicals and dyes used in their production. There may be regulations on the books about permanence for government or regulatory documents but it's hard to say how strictly those are enforced.

[A Smug Dill]

Are fountain pen ink manufacturers legally obliged to accurately describe the ink color of their inks when deciding inks' names ?

No.

 

An ink manufacturer can name an ink Blue Steel if it wanted to, even it is neither objective blue nor look anything like steel. Or Emerald (when the namesake gemstone comes in many colours). Or Red Death. Especially if it also shows a photo of how the ink colour actually looks (subject to individual monitor colour calibration, of course), in the bottle and/or on paper, in its marketing collateral.

Edited May 13, 2020 by A Smug Dill

[A Smug Dill]

Are fountain pen ink manufacturers legally obliged to accurately describe the ink color of their inks when deciding inks' names ?

 

Can "X" company call an ink " Red Zorro" when the ink's color is actually green for example ?

 

The name of the ink cannot be automatically taken prima facie to be the description of the ink colour. Like I said, Blue Steel as the name of an ink may not mean the ink is either blue or steel in colour. In the O.P.'s example, Red Zorro ink does not have to be red.

[XYZZY]

It's not clear to me what the OP is asking for. The question is simple enough on its surface, but there could be many subtleties behind what is meant and how the answer is to be used. The question also makes me wonder "have you ever bought paint at a home store, or selected a color of a car from a dealerships samples?"

 

Color is an hard and complex thing to measure and describe with great precision. As a reflective medium, an inks perceived color is also very dependent on the light used to illuminate it. The end result being that a precise description of an inks color would actually convey less information to consumers than an evocative name like Red Zorro.

 

And laws by themselves are not facts. Laws are interpreted by courts.

[LizEF]

...

Color is an hard and complex thing to measure and describe with great precision. As a reflective medium, an inks perceived color is also very dependent on the light used to illuminate it.

...

1. Color is also very dependent on the eyes seeing it! There are a lot of people here who describe certain colors as "blue" or as "blue-leaning teal" but those same colors look teal-ish or green-leaning to me! Apparently, my eyes shift to the green.

 

(Also, light, eyes, camera, screen, paper, printer, angles, colors of neighboring objects, etc. - there are way, way too many variables which can alter reality, even if two people are standing next to each other looking at the same object.)

 

2. KWZ Brown Pink (review posting tomorrow ). It's not brown. It's not pink. Objectively, I cannot figure out what color it is, but "brown pink" still seems like a pretty good description. There are some shades for which humans don't have names.

 

So unless we start using CMYK, RGB, or hex numbers instead of words to describe inks*, I'm thinking we're going to have to give up on the idea of every shade having a universally understood name.

 

*(a) shading and color-shifting inks anyone? ( Why would you buy an ink without seeing at least a photo of the ink (not (just) the bottle)? I wouldn't buy anything where color mattered to me without seeing it or an image first.

 

[On a personal level that no one else cares about: because I wouldn't buy without seeing, and because I object to the government taking care of me when I can perfectly well take care of myself, I object to the whole notion of laws that require someone to name a color in a way that I can know what color the product is based on said name - it's simply not possible (see 1 and 2 above) and I can look for myself. If the government has nothing better to do, shrink it!]

[BaronWulfraed]

1. Color is also very dependent on the eyes seeing it! There are a lot of people here who describe certain colors as "blue" or as "blue-leaning teal" but those same colors look teal-ish or green-leaning to me! Apparently, my eyes shift to the green.

 

(Also, light, eyes, camera, screen, paper, printer, angles, colors of neighboring objects, etc. - there are way, way too many variables which can alter reality, even if two people are standing next to each other looking at the same object.)

Back a few decades, when I worked at the merchandise pick-up desk at Sears, we had a customer come in to pick up a bicycle for which he had paid to have the shop assemble it.

 

When it was wheeled out, he objected that it wasn't the same color as the one he'd looked at on the store show floor.

 

I don't recall if he rejected it in the end, but it took some 30-40 minutes and bringing the floor model out to the pick-up desk to resolve.

 

The show floor used "warm" fluorescent lighting, merchandise pickup had warehouse "daylight" fluorescents (or worse, unspecified color temperature with heavy green component). The different color temperature reflected off the paint in different spectral levels.

 

 

I also once parked my /red/ car under the ugly yellow lights outside a 7-11 store... My red car was /olive drab/ in that lighting -- there wasn't enough red component in the light to reflect as red from the paint..

 

 

FYI: I'd expect a "blue steel" named ink to be a silvery grey

[LizEF]

Back a few decades, when I worked at the merchandise pick-up desk at Sears, we had a customer come in to pick up a bicycle for which he had paid to have the shop assemble it.

 

When it was wheeled out, he objected that it wasn't the same color as the one he'd looked at on the store show floor.

 

I don't recall if he rejected it in the end, but it took some 30-40 minutes and bringing the floor model out to the pick-up desk to resolve.

 

The show floor used "warm" fluorescent lighting, merchandise pickup had warehouse "daylight" fluorescents (or worse, unspecified color temperature with heavy green component). The different color temperature reflected off the paint in different spectral levels.

 

 

I also once parked my /red/ car under the ugly yellow lights outside a 7-11 store... My red car was /olive drab/ in that lighting -- there wasn't enough red component in the light to reflect as red from the paint..

 

 

FYI: I'd expect a "blue steel" named ink to be a silvery grey

Perfect examples! But I'd expect "blue steel" to be the color of blued steel - a quite dark grey.

[wallylynn]

Is topaz-color ink yellow or blue?

[BaronWulfraed]

Perfect examples! But I'd expect "blue steel" to be the color of blued steel - a quite dark grey.

The two terms are different to me...

 

"blue steel" being a bare (maybe oil coated) steel with a tint or sheen.

"blued steel" being a chemically and/or heat treated steel, which could run the gamut from medium blue through to a deep blue, practically black, or even a brownish tinge.

[LizEF]

The two terms are different to me...

 

"blue steel" being a bare (maybe oil coated) steel with a tint or sheen.

"blued steel" being a chemically and/or heat treated steel, which could run the gamut from medium blue through to a deep blue, practically black, or even a brownish tinge.

(And further proof that it would be insane to try to legislate "accurate" ink names.)

[Bibliophage]

In regards to ownership transfers: I am not a lawyer (I have ethics), but I've watched a lot of those sort of transfers in umpteen years of technical work.

 

There are two kinds of purchases. One is where they purchase a company, including good will. That means that they're taking over the company, and its liabilities. That means they acknowledge debts and obligations, including supporting prior customers. The second kind of purchase is where parts of a company are purchased, such as the name, formulas, or facilities. This happens a lot due to bankruptcies. In that case, they might not sell the same products at all, let alone be willing to support products made by the now defunct company.

 

Remember, trademarks cannot be bought or sold, only given. So if someone wants a trademarked name, they often end up buying something else.

[XYZZY]

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.

 

In regards to ownership transfers: I am not a lawyer (I have ethics), but I've watched a lot of those sort of transfers in umpteen years of technical work.

 

There are two kinds of purchases. One is where they purchase a company, including good will. That means that they're taking over the company, and its liabilities. That means they acknowledge debts and obligations, including supporting prior customers. The second kind of purchase is where parts of a company are purchased, such as the name, formulas, or facilities. This happens a lot due to bankruptcies. In that case, they might not sell the same products at all, let alone be willing to support products made by the now defunct company.

 

Remember, trademarks cannot be bought or sold, only given. So if someone wants a trademarked name, they often end up buying something else.

 

From what has been written in this thread, I too assumed that this is what has happened. It's frequently called an "asset-only purchase". It's also common when buying a small business regardless of bankruptcy status. For example, my wife has purchased two small businesses using asset-only deals: the businesses had been around for years, were successful, but the previous owner was retiring.

 

For an analogy: imagine you buy a restaurant, and a month later are served notice of a lawsuit because the previous year (i.e. prior ownership) a customer became gravely ill due to food poising and that customer thinks "justice" involves a cash payout. Should you be held responsible? You may be correct in saying "It's not my fault", but from a legal standpoint, did you buy the liabilities or not?

 

Of course, regardless of legal responsibility, it's up to the current owner to choose how they handle things. If they send people away believing that the new owners are jerks, that's on them. Maybe the new owners really are jerks. Maybe not, maybe they're sympathetic but just failed at handling the situation and explaining to the customer.

[inkstainedruth]

A number of years ago, back when I did archery, I ordered arrows from a local-ish guy. So did several other people. Turned out the guy could not distinguish between red, magenta, and purple.... So we ended up with, well, magenta fletching and various forms of magenta cresting (the painted bands on the shaft to help distinguish one person's arrows from another person's).

And yesterday, when I went for a drive, I stopped at a grocery store to use the restroom, and the girl at the counter told me to go through the "green doors" in the back of the store. Well, I still had my sunglasses clipped onto my glasses when I walked in the store -- and until I took them off, those doors looked, well, brown....

I can see how (in first the case on the link Parker51 provided) where there was a definite difference between "pink" and "red" -- but in that case (i.e., if scarves were available in both colors) there should have been different SKU codes. But naming an ink? I dunno; but let's just say I'm not ever buying a full bottle of Noodler's Empire Red or De Atramentis Document Red (both of which I *I* would have described as "salmon pink") -- and I gave away the bottle I had of Platinum Mix-Free Flame Red because it looked like Mercurachrome....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Monophoto]

Legal requirements vary from one legal jurisdiction to another. So the answer to this question depends on where the ink is made, and also where it's sold. So that means that there is no one right answer.

 

Some jurisdictions may have 'truth in advertising' laws that are explicit enough to address the issue of color. Whether they are enforceable is another matter. As others have noted, mere names are not necessarily prescriptive. As you may have experienced, if you paint the walls of a room a color, when you come back several years later it will be very difficult to match that color. The walls will have faded, and while the label on a new can of paint may assign the same color name, that's no guarantee that the actual color will be the same. And if the paint is custom-mixed for your application, the only way to come close to matching colors is if you have retained the blending formula used the first time around, and if you go to the same paint store, buy the same brand of paint, etc.

 

There is a scientific system for characterizing colors called "Munsell' notation. But most ink manufacturers produce their product in small batches and can't be bothered with the cost and complexity of using that system.

[inkstainedruth]

I tried to have a custom blend of paint made to match a trim sample for some replacement windows, which were wood but had aluminum trim on the exterior. I went to the local Home Depot and they tried THREE TIMES to get the color right for me using their computer system.... I was not happy because they couldn't get it right -- and they were not happy because they were stuck with three cans of paint that were some random flavor of "Not the right green... house paint.

And I know that when I've taken photos of pens, I do them with the pens against a white cloth (generally outside on my front porch in bright sunlight) and still have to play with color balancing in iPhoto afterwards.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[BaronWulfraed]

 

And I know that when I've taken photos of pens, I do them with the pens against a white cloth (generally outside on my front porch in bright sunlight) and still have to play with color balancing in iPhoto afterwards.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

I'm not surprised... Digital cameras assume the /average/ of the entire image is "grey" and adjust color balance to make that "true" (and all reflected light meters also assume the average of the image should also be "grey").

 

White balance for a white cloth, if only the cloth is shot, would be the correct grey (but the exposure would be under). Putting any color object on top of that white cloth will bias the white balance -- a red object will result in the camera adding a bit of the complement (cyan if my mental model is correct) to bring the average back to "grey".

 

Methods to reduce post-processing...

 

If the camera allows for setting custom white balance based upon an image: obtain a photographic grey card; place the card where the subject would be and fill the image frame with it; shoot it in the light that will be used for the subject; tell the camera to use /that image/ for computing white balance. Replace card with subject. Shoot. {Note: if you can also set a manual exposure, record what the automatic exposure is of the grey card, then set that as a manual exposure.}

 

If you can not do that much... arrange to have the grey card somewhere in the frame. Then post-process using a white-balance picker (in Photoshop LEVELS adjustment, this is the middle/grey eyedropper) to click on the grey card. That will adjust the overall white balance to make the card the correct grey. Then crop out the grey card from the image.

Edited May 18, 2020 by BaronWulfraed

[amberleadavis]

Uh, someone has probably already pointed this out, but the PR ink color Blue Suede was in reference to Elvis Presley's Blue Suede Shoes.

 

[amberleadavis]

For those of you who have been following the thread, you may see that some posts have been hidden. So, now it is time to remind everyone of the rules.

 

No naming and shaming.

 

I hid the first post and then hid posts responding to that post.

 

Other points:

 

If you are not a lawyer, do not go around analyzing the law for others, in every state in the US that is practicing law without a license. Since I'm not a lawyer in any other country, I cannot tell you if what has transpired here is the unauthorized practice of law in other countries.

 

No politics - so no discussing legislation about truth in naming.