Despair Suing 7,000,000 Email Users Over :-( 219
Calle Ballz writes "According to an article on Despair's Website, they are suing 7,000,000 email users over trademark infringment for using the :-( 'emoticon'. I can't tell if it is a joke or not, I would like for it to be. The trademark registration is valid and is listed here. *sigh*" I would just like to say that our use of :-) is covered by fair usage. And that this is the funniest thing I've seen in a long time.Update: 01/26 04:18 PM by H :Check out the press release about it - that's one of the best pieces of satire I've seen in a while. Kudos to Despair for making a mockery of trademarks. Update: 01/29 04:52 PM by CT : Apparently a bunch of retarded Slashdot readers couldn't discern that this was parody and mailed despair to complain. Little itchy on the flaming finger guys? Here's the NY Times story
Prior art? (Score:1)
Also used it to annoy people by directing it to their eyes.
Yeah I know, sunlight is everything but coherent, but i think this would classify as prior art... of course I'm not USian, so...
Victor
Re:What's truly amazing... (Score:1)
:-) is probably a TM too (Score:1)
Whoa, time travel! (Score:1)
How about reading the links? (Score:1)
It's a definite hoax, even if they were nuts enough to try they couldn't associate it with email since it isn't 'printed matter'.
Re:What's really sad (Score:1)
Re:"I can't use :-( anymore" is WRONG. (Score:1)
>You can use the trademark all you want. You can
>paint it on your house, you can sell posters on
>it. A registered trademark just means that the
>holder can sue you for it, and collect damages.
Uhm. Think about what you just wrote.
That is not how [Controlled Substance] law works. You can [sell crack] all you want. You can [pass it out at school yards], you can sell [big chunks of] it. A [Controlled Substance law] just means that the [police] can [arrest] you for it, and [send you to a pound-me-in-the-ass penitentiary].
The trademark DOES mean you CAN'T USE IT without fear of legal repercussions.
As someone pointed out, the only laws that tell you what you "can't do" in the sense that you're using are the physical laws of the universe.
Granted, in this case, it's all a big joke - Despair, Inc couldn't care less what silly emoticons you use.
But they sure could have made a fortune off those AOL folks...
-LjM
Re:What's truly amazing... (Score:1)
patent the blink tag, sue it off the face of the web
yes! we shall turn the evil forces of patent law to good!
um, or something
Re:Great patent referenced (Score:1)
Go ahead, sue me, ya bastids!... (Score:1)
Hell, I've got a whole alternate mineshaft full of drunken, extremely bored lawyers sittin' around playin' with themselves, all 300 of whom would probably like nothing better than to sue ya blue for any trumped up reason I care to give 'em.
Really, these mugs make the MPAA's goons look like a bunch of freakin' gucci-shoed panty-waists!
So go ahead, emoticon-boy, make my day...
This seems familiar... (Score:1)
Funny...
I could swear that I submitted this EXACT SAME STORY not two weeks ago.
Oh well... phocked over again.
Robert Dumas (robertdumas@hotmail.com)
What's saddest... (Score:1)
How can anyone (Score:1)
This happened before in real life (Score:1)
Hey! This would work... (Score:1)
hehe (Score:1)
Re:Whoa, time travel! (Score:1)
I see Taco @ 02:18PM (1424), Hemos @ 04:18PM (1618)... I'm reading this @ 3:37PM (local = CST), with your post listed at 2:40PM (1440)...
But I do believe that Hemos can time travel, but only with Norby's help...
--
Amazon.com (Score:1)
--McVerne
Re:Great patent referenced (Score:1)
> in the press release. I almost burst a gut!
Not a cat gut, I hope. I think that method is patented.
Slashdot's slide continues... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
let us read the rest of the page... (Score:1)
OK! That DOES IT! I'm gonna patent the... (Score:1)
So, EVERYONE will have to pay me $0.01USD per 100 letters EVER USED out of the Alphabet. For those who are unfamiliar with it, it is represented by these characters:
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCEDFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTU
Furthermore, I claim the patent for the numbers 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 and any combination that can be produced by concatenation of any of those digits.
That means when you write source code or HTML or XML or anything like that, YOU HAVE TO PAY ME!!
I'm RICH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH
Pr0n® (Score:1)
That's right, I said persecuted buddy! Screw the legal crap.
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Hmmm (Score:1)
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Parody...AND it includes cheesy photoshop work! (Score:1)
CmdrTaco needs a swift boot to the head. He also needs to READ THE ARTICLES BEFORE HE BLOODY POSTS THEM! If the Slashdot staff, including CmdrTaco, don't have the time or energy to read the stories they're posting, they have no right to post opinionated commentary with the stories on the front page...they can save it for the comments subpages like all of the rest of the ignorant pigs that post prematurely on Slashdot.
A little whine with my cheese... (Score:1)
2001-01-25 19:52:59
W :-( E :-( L :-( L :-( (Score:1)
Dive Gear [divingdeals.com]
Re:Whats sadder (is that a word?)... (Score:2)
They own a trademark, not a patent. Trademarks are limited to one field of use, so we have Apple Computer and Apple Records, Sun Microsystems and Sun Oil Company. What the trademark means is that no other company can use :-( as their corporate logo, and that's all.
This is completely legitimate.
The reason that we are now having such trouble over trademarks is that trademark owners are trying to leverage their limited control over the use of a word (in a specific business) to an unlimited control (use in unrelated fields, like domain names of businesses in a completely different line of work). The ICANN is headed for a legal fall Real Soon Now because of this (their attempt to expand trademark law even though they have no right to do so).
If it weren't satire... (Score:2)
In this case, the generic use of emoticons greatly predates the trademark (allegedly applied for in 1998): According to ESR's _The New Hacker Dictionary_, 2nd Ed (1993),
So: invalid, indefensible trademark-- already in use as a generic even before the trademark application.Actually, hemos, it shows what's right... (Score:2)
Re:What's truly amazing... (Score:2)
Yes, I know, it's all just a matter of time . . .
Geoff
Re:I great piece of satire.... (Score:2)
[shrug] Maybe not "or" but "and". So?
(Was this an insightful comment by me, or a cynical attempt to get moderated up?)
Re:"Never underestimate the power... (Score:2)
oops...
how the hell could a person not tell? (Score:2)
that's sad, as in
:-(
Re:What's really sad (Score:2)
Re:What's really sad (Score:2)
Great patent referenced (Score:2)
Porn Industry (Score:2)
--
Be real . . . (Score:2)
Be real.
Nonsense (Score:2)
While it is "politically correct" in this forum to be anti-IP, and to make things laughable, it is critical to recall that hysteria is one of the traits most effectively used by the pro-strong-IP forces to marginalize and discredit critics of overreaching.
Simply put, it is not really a great idea to try to fight an intellectual war where you are weakest. There are strong anti-IP arguments. This isn't one of them.
Anyone who pretends otherwise is selling something.
Re:Regarding the cat/laser patent... (Score:2)
You are right - the filer is an idiot...
Worldcom [worldcom.com] - Generation Duh!
Re:Regarding the cat/laser patent... (Score:2)
Anyhow, thank you for correcting me - I was thinking a CO2 type laser setup, forgetting the IR lasers used in CD players and such...
Sometimes dumb thoughts come out of me...
Worldcom [worldcom.com] - Generation Duh!
Regarding the cat/laser patent... (Score:2)
A method for inducing cats to exercise consists of directing a beam of invisible light produced by a hand-held laser...
Invisible light? Is this the innovation in the patent?
Note that most typical laser pointers project visible light, generally 635 or 670nm, which is a bright red. For a laser pointer to generate invisible light, it would have to be a UV or IR laser.
Does anyone know where I could get a UV or IR laser, in a sleek pen form factor?
Ok, I am being sarcastic (these types of lasers tend to be on the large side of things) - but I have to wonder about the wording of this patent. It really seems absurd...
Worldcom [worldcom.com] - Generation Duh!
Re:Go Team Despair...or not...whatever (Score:2)
>but Despair, Inc is a corperation...they're not
>supposed to rip on people like Microsoft, Apple,
>and Fry's Electronics. That wouldn't be
>Politically Correct of them!
We should all give a tip o' the hat to despair.com: they put "Windows 95 officially debuts (1995)" on their 1999 calendar August 24 entry.
For those who don't know, despair.com calendars have a variety of tidbits put in some of the days of each month, chronicling something bad that happened that day in history.
YHBT. YHL. HAND. (Score:2)
Re:slashdot trademarked /. (and other observations (Score:2)
just like
it's pretty sad and funny. it's
Re:Hmmm (Score:2)
Thanks for the clarification. And for what it's worth, I'm a tad pissed off, as well.
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Re:Nonsense (Score:2)
When the courts pervert IP law to that extent, what depths of absurdity are needed to make something incredible?
Re:Funniest thing Taco has seen in a while... (Score:2)
(Though that's not the record...I submitted the "sugar eating Robot" thing last September, but those in charge didn't find an acceptable version until January.)
Re:Funniest thing Taco has seen in a while... (Score:2)
Now THAT is funny...
Think Harder Before you Speak (Score:2)
I don't know if that's what he was thinking, but I think I should get a "No Prize" for it. I like to read the occasional Slashdot post that serves more as a link than a pre-packaged, categorized, analyzed news blurb. Then I form my own judgement and proceed to bore myself to tears reading what all of the hysterical ACs have to say about it.
By the way, have you ever noticed that the people most likely to say, "Jeezus you moron, why don't you think a little before you post," are also the quickest to misjudge in exactly the same way? Funny.
Damn... (Score:2)
Re:Damn... (Score:2)
"I can't use :-( anymore" is WRONG. (Score:2)
There is a real Trademark, and it is quite reasonable. You can not use the frowny emoticon as representing your trade in business cards and artwork. ... I can't create a printing house and use the frowning logo.
That is not how Intellectual Property law works. You can use the trademark all you want. You can paint it on your house, you can sell posters on it. A registered trademark just means that the holder can sue you for it, and collect damages.
In this case, while they HAVE acquired :-( as a registered trademark, they are NOT using Carnivore to find infringers, they are NOT likely to care about your use of :-( at all. If ever, they'd only care about an egregious use of :-( as an identity mark to divert or confuse THEIR customers.
Valid Use of Carnivore (Score:2)
Re:Happy Brithday (Score:2)
From http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/~howard/Papers/copyright 99.html [ucla.edu]:
Note, this is a protected Mark (Score:2)
However, they have that logo. I can't create a printing house and use the frowning logo.
I like there logo, and I thought the page was hysterical.
Re:slashdot trademarked /. (and other observations (Score:2)
Poop. I would have liked to see that.
I have to confess that I was a _tiny_ bit suspicious when I read, "Whether you are a 4th grade nothing using your momma's AOL account, or you are Time Magazine's "Man of the Year", we are going to hunt you down, and when we do, we're really going to give you something to
Ah well. I'll have to get my amusement elsewhere I guess.
Think before you post stories (Score:2)
Re:The next thing you know ... (Score:2)
But to be a valid trademark, the mark need not be inherently distinctive. Rather, it can acquire distinctiveness through use. This is why Coca-Cola can be a trademark despite being merely descriptive of the ingredients of the drink.
a little bit of truth goes a long way... (Score:2)
The trademark is real. It is probably even enforable on "Printed matter namely, greeting cards, posters and art prints", and for commercial purposes... The rest of the article is fake.
Lameness? (Score:2)
Read the following line:
Despair has also petitioned the court to require defendants to submit a handwritten letter which repeats the phrase ":-( is a registered trademark of Despair, Inc." one-thousand times.
Or how about the following? I think real lawyers would know the difference between a trademark and a patent...
What is certain, however, is that it appears that someone has finally bested patent 5443036 for most ridiculous intellectual property filing in history."
But I think this one is probably the funniest:
he had personally taken Jeff Bezos and his wife to dinner, to congratulate him on his willingness to "take a innovative stand against innovation", and also to inform him that Bezos was amongst the 7,000,000 who had violated Despair's trademark.
Funniest thing Taco has seen in a while... (Score:2)
Then why did he reject the exact same story when I submitted it a week ago?
This hypocrisy bothers me. It would be one thing if he changed his mind and decided to post it, but to put it on the front page...
Re:What's really sad (Score:2)
Re:Happy Brithday (Score:2)
Of course not. It's not a public performance.
What about a movie it was sung in?
MOST CERTAINLY. In fact, that's why that song is made up because at the time they were filming they didn't have the rights to use "Happy Birthday" in video, only the version released to so valuable (in terms of publishing rights). When they filmed the movie "Big" the crew had to film the birthday scene twice, once with "Happy Birthday" and once with some crappy song they had theatres.
Beautiful!!! (Score:2)
First, the form a company around the idea of making really depressing versions of those inspirational new-agey posters...
Then they advertize on Slashdot, the most popular geek website, and turn the Slash editors into shameless publicity whores for their company!
Next, I'm sure they will hire Jon Katz to write a book about Despair, hailing them as representative of a wave of "New Media" or "Open Poster-Making" or maybe even "Post-Columbine Virtual Community Chickclickers" or something.
Way to go, Despair! Keep fighting the bad fight.
Re:Actually, hemos, it shows what's right... (Score:2)
Can you prove this?
Hits (Score:2)
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
What's truly amazing... (Score:2)
...is that they apparently have an actual patent on the :-(. Go to their page, they have a link to the uspto.org patent server, and they have registered it. So much for those who think the patent system isn't broken.
It's sattire though, so... (Score:2)
Re:No it's not )-: (Score:2)
:-( Symbol (Score:2)
There are many other wonderful ways to express sadness such as
I think I should trademark
My Bad.... (Score:2)
Prior art - or how I learned to love DOS attacks (Score:2)
Luckily for me I registered it with both the Library of Congress and the Canadian version thereof (even have the reg papers in a box in the attic).
Interesting aside - maybe I should read through my published articles and journals and see if I have any more prior art I can use to deny MSFT and other baddies their key patents, since I have prior claim due to usage?
Re:Actually, hemos, it shows what's right... (Score:2)
In summary, even though Despair, Inc does have a trademark on
Just FYI.
Old news (Score:2)
Re:Come on, critical thinking, people. (Score:3)
Great article!
-m
my feelings on the matter... (Score:3)
What really sucks is... (Score:3)
hmmm is :( diluting their trademark? (Score:3)
i smell a segfault article on this.....
Re:What really sucks is... (Score:3)
the Cat bit (Score:3)
Which brings me to my next question.. if they can patent an action, can I patent masturbation? Think of the money maker there!
Maeryk
Re:Come on, critical thinking, people. (Score:3)
Re:What's really sad (Score:3)
Re::-( Symbol (Score:4)
The next thing you know ... (Score:4)
Oh, someone [puppyfarm.com] did.
But I think it's another joke.
"In order to be inherently distinctive, the trade dress must be either arbitrary or suggestive..."
(Cmdr)Taco Cabana Int'l, Inc. v. Two Pesos, Inc.
932 F.2d 1113 (5th Cir. 1991)
All trolls, please send your check to . . . (Score:4)
"Never underestimate the power... (Score:5)
Some people don't seem to get this is a joke. According to today's SJ Mercury, some people have been writing hate mail to Despair about it.
Here's the link (see bottom of page)
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/svtech/reports/gmsv/
[An email from Despair follows]
John
Thanks for your recent mention of our :-( trademark story in your "Good Morning Silicon Valley" column.
It is somewhat unclear to me from reading your recent write-up whether or not you were aware that the article regarding the frown emoticon was a parody story. If you were aware of this, please forgive me for this email.
Your article does state that we are satirists -- but afterwards seems to treat the matter of the lawsuit as though it were not a satirical gag. This seems to have created some confusion amongst the readership of your column, some of whom have contacted us in outrage asking passionately for their names to be added to the list of those we intend to sue. Heroic gestures, to be sure, but ultimately as futile as grabbing the family shotgun to fend off a Martian invasion being reported by Orson Wells.
Best regards,
Justin Sewell, CEO
Despair, Inc.
sad, really (Score:5)
He registered for and recieved copyright on all the emoticons.
I sent him a copy of the story, but the sarcasm must have whizzed over his head. He sent this cease and decist letter to despair:
Pathetic, isn't it?
Re:Actually, hemos, it shows what's right... (Score:5)
Similarly many things like endorcements that you see on products (Such as the Circle-U on foods or the ADA label on toothpaste) Can only work due to trademarks.
Now I will admit in some cases the Enforcement of trademarks has gone to far.
Re:What's really sad (Score:5)
No intelligent people ever believed that the trademark holder was going to sue 7,000,000 email users. Only people with a mental deficiency (the inability to recognize even the most blatantly obvious heavy-handed satire as such unless they literally read the words "this is satire") are fooled by such things.
Unfortunately several of the Slashdot editors suffer from said mental deficiency, as do way too many Slashdot readers.
slashdot trademarked /. (and other observations) (Score:5)
On a separate note...
I am AMAZED at how many idiots there are that don't seem to be able to realize that this story is MAKING FUN OF FRIVILOUS LAWSUITS by PRETENDING TO BE ONE.
I have to revise my opinion of the average intelligence of the readership of slashdot WAAAAAY down.
Ask yourself, outraged nimrods, if you really believe the following things are TRUE.
1) A company that sells PARODY products is actually working with the FBI to MONITOR YOUR EMAIL.
2) The PARODY company in question is SERIOUSLY planning to sue 7,000,000 people.
3) The founder of that company is SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING changing his name to
4) The SAME person also is suing JEFF BEZOS for infringing on a trademark.
5) The DISCLAIMER at the bottom of the story is actually NOT TRUE.
Did you read any of the OTHER STORIES [despair.com] on the website?
Do you REALLY believe they are partnering with Yahoo [despair.com] to create BOOHOO.COM- a portal for miserable people?
Do you REALLY believe Noah Wylie is the interim CEO of FUTURE POWER [despair.com]
The only story on their entire site that I might ACTUALLY believe is the one about selling 5000 Apathy posters to Fry's [despair.com]. That I believe.
Come on, critical thinking, people. (Score:5)
From the writeup, "I can't tell if this is a joke or not."
From the page itself, Articles and items appearing in our "Recent Spin" are satirical and are not intended to be an accurate portrayal of the persons, companies or events depicted within them.
This is SATIRE. Put on your thinking caps, people, or geez, read the whole thing! The CEO also claims he's considering changing his legal name to the frowney emoticon. Yeah right.
What's really sad (Score:5)