Which is different from “owning” a color. But with a dysfunctional legal system, it ends up back at the same place: A lot of unrelated companies afraid to use a color or a name or a mark that is similar in ANY way to a major brand for fear of being sued into oblivion. Functionally allowing big money to own simple words (Windows), common symbols (chevron), and colors.

It's not quite as bad as you make it out to be.

Eg Coca Cola might own red for drinks, but you can still use eg red-and-blue on your logo for your own brand of drink.