Category Archives: Law

Patent Humor: A Method of Tilting A Head to Indicate Confusion

See above for illustration accompanying an issued patent for A Method of Tilting A Head to Indicate Confusion. This method is routinely employed and likely infringed by most law students when first confronted with Fed. R. Civ. P. 19(a) and 19(b) regarding Joinder of Required Parties, as amply illustrated by the appropriately numbered illustrations above. Note for example […]

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WYNGZ are not made of wings. Or trademarks.

For the odd trademarks file: Stephen Colbert mocks DiGiorno’s new product: PIZZA and WYNGZ. Shockingly, Wyngz are not made of chicken wings. (Ok, maybe not so shockingly.) According to Colbert, the name was chosen because of laws regulating non-chicken wing products. As Colbert puts it, the term WYNGZ is “a government-mandated way of getting around […]

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Samsung’s Super Bowl ad, IP enforcement, and feedback loops

So let’s talk about the SUPER BOW…[SHHHHHH!!!] Samsung has posted a really funny video of a Super Bowl ad where a fictional Samsung executive cautions two ad writers that Samsung may not use trademarked terms such as SUPER BOWL, BALTIMORE RAVENS, or SAN FRANCISCO FORTY-NINERS. The video is a hoot, starring Seth Rogen and Paul […]

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Prosecutorial overreach and the “sick culture” of the Department of Justice

As a follow-up to my post last week on overreach by federal prosecutors, I highly recommend an excellent piece by lawyer Dan Kennedy on Aaron Swartz and the “sick culture” that pervades the Department of Justice. A few excerpts: It seems never to have occurred to [the federal prosecutors] that there is something wrong with overcharging, and then raising […]

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