The Pillsbury Doughboy vs. Engineers

Anonymous Coward writes: "Just when you thought things could not get more stpid. Salon is reporting in this story that Pillsbury is sending cease-and-desist letters this week to universities and Sun Microsystems among others ordering engineers to stop holding what the doughboy company considers illegal "bake-offs." A bake-off is slang for testing software against protocols. This article tells the story. Xray crystallographers who use the "shake and bake" software better watch out. They're probably next."

Comments

Yes, We should

[Calle Ballz]

excerpt from www.pillsbury.com, link to site is here

[begin contact info]
Contact Us
Before you contact us, we'd like you to review our policies on privacy and suggestion and idea submissions.

Phone
1(800)767-4466
8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Central Time
Monday through Friday

Email
Click here to contact Pillsbury about product and technical questions. Kids, get your parent's permission first!

Write
The Pillsbury Company
2866 Pillsbury Center
Minneapolis, MN 55402 USA


[end contact info]

if they have a problem with that.... good =)

Does that make it illegal to "poke" people?

[amirboy2]

am i in legal danger?

Re:Article gets it wrong.

[RedWizzard]

"Kleenex" is very much a registered and protected trademark, despite the yabberings of the uninformed.

An article in the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology states (references in the quote removed):

It is important to keep in mind that trademarks are inherently adjectival and must remain distinctive to retain their protected status. While many formerly distinctive marks have made a transition into common, generic nouns ("Kleenex" for "tissue") or even verbs (e.g., "to (make a) Xerox"), this metamorphosis, when complete, sacrifices the trademark to the public domain.

The thing to remember is that it will take a court case to determine whether that metamorphosis from trademark to generic term is complete. AFAIK for Kleenex that case has not happened, and Kimberly-Clark are still vigorously defending the trademark. A list of trademarks that have become generic can be found here. Kleenex is not on it.

Bake Off

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun can call it the "pillsbury fuck off" instead.

Article gets it wrong.

[isaac]

"Kleenex" is very much a registered and protected trademark, despite the yabberings of the uninformed.

To test this, I propose the author attempt to bring to market a line of facial tissues called "Kleenex", and see exactly how long it takes for him to hear from the Kimberly-Clark corporation. Indeed, even if he were marketing Kleenex-brand Bowling Balls, I suspect he'd hear from K-C. This is such a stupid myth that would never be propagated but for poor fact-checking.

-Isaac

Dough-Boy cakes

[doublem]

This has been posted to the Pilsbury http://www.mealtimeideas.com/bulletinboard/

For those of you who don't know, Pilsbury is sending cease and desist orders to a variety of organizations who use the term "bake-off."

The most recent round of such letters went to computer companies who use the term for a state of software testing. Salon has an article about it online. http://www.salon.com/tech/log/2001/01/19/pillsbury /index.html

Your local school could be next!

Anyway, my computer geek background and my considerable cooking skills inspired me to come up with the following recipe for Dough-Boy cakes.

First, you start with a basic pound cake or Mazitpan recipe. If using a pound cake recipe, you need to add flour to create a very dense dough.

Roll the dough into circles for the head, an oval for the chest and smaller ovals for the legs and arms. If you're feeling creative you can even make the hat and add some food coloring.

The more sadistic among us can shape the head with skeleton features to indicate a cooked Dough-Boy who met a gruesome end, as in the picture here: http://members.tripod.com/laffs/images/Doughboy.jp g

Serve and enjoy.

http://www.matthewmiller.net

Re:Should we write Pillsbury

[sjames]

So should we contact Pillsbury about this or do we even have a right to? Are we even qualified since we are all not lawyers and we do not have the "all" the facts? I ask this because some upbraded my posting of Nintendo contact info in an earlier discussion this past week. Some did not like the idea of an executive get slash-dotted by all the people writing and sending email.

Many of us (including me) are not lawyers. That precludes our practice of law. We are still members of the society that Pillsbury operates within, and thus are entitled to moral and ethical opinions. We have every right to voice our opinions, and to call upon fellow citizens for action (such as boycotts and letter/email writing). Pillsbury may listen or not as it chooses. It can ignore the threat of a boycott or take it seriously as they choose.

I believe that posting corperate contact info and using it is the right thing to do. That right stops at posting home phone numbers and making harassing calls at 3A.M.

The solution is clear

[jayhawk88]

I don't think the phrase "b4k3-0ffz" is copyrighted yet.

fresh dough boy

[Anonymous Coward]

mmmm...

Reality catches up to satire...

[JanneM]

Some time ago, this text circulated arount the net. It was funny then - how times change...

Stupidity par excellance.

[chris_sawtell]

They are just doing to get World-Wide publicity for free, and all you dotty slashers have fallen for it, hook line and sinker.

turn pillsbury in for pirating.

[small_dick]

Finally, a use for anonymous cowards.

All you ACs out there, go down to the public or school library and sneak your way onto a browser.

Wear a disguise, since they all have time lapse video now. Shave your legs so they are smooth and sexy, and wear a cheerleader outfit or something. Practice singing "We got spirit, yes we do, we got spirit, how about you".

Email an anonymous tip to the FBI, Microsoft and the SPI (or whatever that place is) stating that you are a sysadmin for Pillsbury, and your boss made you do 250 illegal installs of Office and NT last Wednesday in the Legal Dept. of the Pillsbury Corporate Offices.

Hee, Hee, Hee.