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It's Not a Police Box, It's a Tardis
xA40D writes "The BBC is reporting that they've won the battle with the Metropolitan Police over the trademark police box, more commonly known as a Tardis: 'arbitrator Shaun Sherlock remarked that even if the police had built up any reputation, it would have only been in the area of policing and law enforcement and would not have extended into the goods and services which the BBC had applied to use it for.'"
All caps, right? Time And Relative Dimensions in Space, yeah? OK. As you were.
You mean the BBC are planning to use the policebox for timetravel tips?
The timelords would not be happy about that.
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
Next stop will be ionian columns.
(The Master's tardis default appearance)
... that my room was a tardis. not so much for interstellar travel and everything that the good doctor used to do (although that would be cool), but just so I can fit all my shit in there easily.
dont know how much my cat would like K-9 though...
I peed in one of those Tardis boxes when I went to the UK, as I seriously thought it was a public urinal (I was very drunk) :D
But anyways, it's not like the police were going to win against the BBC's high-priced lawyers -- and now that this lawsuit's over, the police (read: taxpayers) also have to pay the BBC's mega legal fees, too, even if the rest of it is just 850 pounds.
If I were a UK taxpayer, I'd be quite angry at them for it.
You'd think the coppers would have something better to do than having trade mark wrangles with the BBC over something they stopped using nearly 50 years ago. Sounds a bit opportunistic - were they trying to raise some cash for the police social club?
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WTF? Hey, I totally support police finding "alternative" methods of funding (as opposed to milking the taxpayers, or confiscating anything they lay their eyes on thanks to the WO(s)D, ala a witchfinder general), but really...
With all that we have going on in the world, these folks have nothing better to do than bicker over who owns a damned box? Oh, sorry, the *IMAGE* of the box. My bad. That makes it so much more serious.
If he were just a bit more clever, there never would have been a dispute. Nobody would have ever known there was a such thing as a "TARDIS" if the Doctor wasn't materializing and dematerializing all over London in broad daylight like that.
If these walls could talk they'd probly still ignore me. --MF DOOM
Perhaps this will allow a reincarnation of the earlier Dr. Who TV series in a new form, or perhaps even a new movie. I remember watching these when I was young, very cool stuff despite its age.
:-)
But the Metropolitan Police lost its appeal and has been ordered to pay £850, plus legal costs.
The case has been rumbling on since 1996, when the Patent Office originally accepted the Tardis as a BBC trade mark.
Anyone besides me think that the £850 isn't going to amount to much in comparison to the legal charges. Having to pay legal charges for 7 years worth of case-wrangling is probably a big ouch on the police bankbook. The Metropolitan Police will probably have a shortage of donuts in the office for quite awhile.
Any else anticipate an article that states Metropolitan Police are reducing the tolerance for speeding limit to 1% and then upping the cost of a tickets, they'll have to recover this money somehow.
Another question is... which Dr. Who?
tar -c myself && dis locate work->home.
They're both government departments - can't they be happy that it belongs to the government no matter what? Ahh the wonders of bureaucracy!
Damn bitches! err... lawyers.
What the hell did K-9 actually do anyway? Yes, he was the doc's trusty friend, but he just buzzed and wheeled around the TARDIS all day doing sod all.
Shees, I mean the thing never even trundled his way off to the door wagging his antenna when the Doc returned home. Not much of an 'old faithful was he?
Come to think of it, I think the Doc didn't really like him either - you never saw him stroking the box-o-bolts or say hello to it.
Maybe he was supposed to have been a guard dog for the TARDIS, since there were'nt any locks on the front door, and that thing oftern found it way into pretty hostile territory. If so, he could have developed a more fierce attitutude. What would he have done if an intruder got in? Pee'd oil on him?
'arbitrator Shaun Sherlock remarked that even if the police had built up any reputation, it would have only been in the area of policing and law enforcement and would not have extended into the goods and services which the BBC had applied to use it for.'
In response to which the BBC commented, "No shit, Sherlock."
...the metropolitan police are running out of places to hide the bodies and simply need to figure out the "dimensionally transcendental" nature of the TARDIS in order to have more room.
In light of this, I wonder why the people with the patent on the tire-pressure-checker have never gone after the BBC for infringing on their design for the sonic screwdriver!
The real culprit here is the broken Chameleon Circuit. It was under warranty, but alas - the last time he was near an authorized OEM service station, the good Doctor had to leave Gallifrey in haste before someone tried to go and make him Lord President again...
And remember - the REAL Matrix doesn't involve a kid whose only line is "there is no spoon."
Dr. Who rocks. Only he could go back to the beginning of time and jettison 1/3 of the TARDIS (which is asserted in many previous episodes to be infinite) to escape from the gravitational pull that would become the Big Bang. Silly Zero Room.
That's my purse! I don't know you! -- Bobby Hill
If the BBC, you can buy T-shirts, memorabilia, copies of shows, etc.
If the police, I've never been in the UK, and from what's been posted it would seem I couldn't expect to see such a blue police box on the streets. Even though it might have been a trademark at some point, it lost that status because it's status as a trademark was not maintained and protected.
Had they continually protected and maintained the blue police box as a unique feature or trademark, they might have had legal ground. For example, the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) dress uniform is a very distinctive trademark and is appropriately protected. The protection isn't so much to make money for the RCMP as it is to protect the historical importance of that image and theoretically to ensure that it isn't abused for profit by a person or business that didn't build that reputation.
As to "Damn cops", everyone has the right to their own prejudice. I've never had any problems with the police -- give respect and you get it back. Most of them are just regular people who spend an awful lot of time dealing with whackos, drunks, crazies, domestic arguments, and a lot of other situations where they have no assurance it's not going to blow up in their face. Give them attitude and they have to assume you're a problem and will react accordingly. Don't get me wrong -- there are a few gung-ho gung-ho jarheads and corrupt/prejudiced idiots with badges. They just aren't the norm.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
A trade mark on Mr. Bean? :)
Live for the present, learn from the past, and dream of the future!
In a meaningful way, they may have just made it possible for people to use any non-commercial trademark in a way that doesn't infringe on the original use.
;-)
I don't think this is anything particularly new. The Beatles' Apple record company used to use a picture of a real apple on the labels, which I assume they considered to be a trademark.
I don't think the farmer tried to sue them for it.
Eh? If it was taken out of service, how did I manage to get a photo taken of me next to one? For the excessively keen, this TARDIS is outside Earls Court Underground Station, in London, England.
... and today's pet project has
It seems I'm the only person here to actually not know what the original purpose of the police box was.
I mean, before 1960 when they were taken out of service, what were they used for ?
Did they have a telephone inside which connected you to the police ?
Or was it somewhere to hide when you were being chased by hooligans ?
Awright, now they have the budget to bring back Dr. Who for another season! More tinfoil and oatmeal skinned aliens than ever before!
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
This looks like a good introduction to the history of the British Police Box...
"The TARDIS style boxes were the most expensive and the cost for building a box in 1931 was 55pounds 16 shillings and 7pence, with another 3 pounds for number plate, coat hook, lino , stool, a fire extinguisher and bracket, as well as a brush and duster to keep the mini police station tidy!"
Happy reading. Me, I'm 36 and grew up in England. Never saw a 'real' police box til I was a teenager. Vaguely knew that Dr. Who was travelling round in something that old-fashioned policemen used to use when my dad was a boy (or the Age of the Dinosaurs or similar) but never saw one until I was wandering round London as a teenager and found a few grubby disused and flyposted ones. Luckily these days councils have cottoned on to the fact that they are actually design classics, charming and tourists love them (as well as us who grew up as kids watching the Doctor take on tin foil and vacuum cleaner-part aliens), and they've been restoring a few rather than flattening them all.
Incidently, "This Planet Earth" used to make a full size replica TARDIS that you could purchase online. It came in a wood version and later a fibreglass version - but it has since been discontinued (only recently too). But you can still buy replica Daleks, Cybermen, K9's etc. Very high quality, i.e. as good if not better than the TV originals. In fact the Daleks have been used for Doctor Who promo gigs I believe. Check them out at http://www.thisplanetearth.co.uk It looks like they are thinking of releasing the 1996 movie version of the TARDIS soon..
Current usage in the BBC Dr Who Site and novels is all caps ...
There's at least one in Glasgow, possibly two, and I think there's a couple in Edinburgh...
This is how the BBC got the TARDIS idea:
Director: We'r doing a space time travel "Star Trek" type thing. We need a flash spaceship, with lots of flashing lights lights and things.
Props man: This is the BBC, be realistic.
Director: OK, well we need a cheap model spaceship with thin wires that we can blue-screen with and do some cheesy fly-by shots.
Props man: This is the BBC, be realistic.
Director: Well we need something, what have you got?
Props man: I've got this old phone box from "Dixon of Dock Green", needs a lick of paint but...
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The BBC could practically make three Dr. Who episodes off that settlement amount!
Let's see... rent a rock quarry for the day, drag out the old Dalek suits, Voila! Dr. Who episode!
-jason <-- still loves Dr.Who
As in Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian columns.
I wonder what the Master was doing in Greece? Hmm.
It's definitely gone. Dematerialised or whatever. That photo was taken in January...
Mind you, that's absolutely a broken chameleon circuit. Who'd expect to see a call-box like that in London? Even a red phone-booth would be a rare sighting.....
... and today's pet project has
OT as hell, but interesting nontheless.
That's a lot of nerve.
Miko O'Sullivan
I am a Doctor Who expert (lots of misspent (sorta) hours of my youth, up until I discovered my first compiler), and the TARDIS can be unlocked by pretty much anyone with the key.
In one of the sillier episodes, we learn (because the screenwriters had just invented this fact) that inserting the key into the lock turns off lots of protecting and stabilizing mechanisms, on the assumption that the door will be opened half a second later. So a companion (not the Doctor) puts the key in, starts to the open the door, but gets distracted and walks away leaving the key in the lock. So the TARDIS starts drifting around on its own.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
So? I do that all the time in my car.
Yet Another Web Site
When I was a lad kids used to hide behind the sofa when Dr Who came on TV.
Nowdays kids hide behind the sofa when the police come to the door.
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I'm from the UK living in the US and for my American friends straining their eyes at their monitors, I have to point out that yes, there really is no missing M or six zeros after that number.
We English figured out a long time ago that the fun is in wearing wigs while you make the judgment, not in ordering large amounts of money to be moved around.
Anyone noticed how ahead of it's time Dr. Who was?
:
Examples
Stealth Technology : Chameleon Circuits (ok, so they never worked, but you can't fly a B-2 through a rain shower either).
Non-lethal Weapons : Sonic Screwdriver
Recent 'Anit-Gravity' research : The TARDIS' ability to move by manipulating time and space
Sony's Aibo : K-9 (granted, K-9 could kick Aibo's ass)
And is it just me or is Jeff Goldblum always seem like he's trying to channel Tom Baker?
Anyone care for a jelly-baby?
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They should try suing Bill & Ted and George Carlin for the infringing time-travelling phone booth they used in their excellent adventure... They definitely stole the idea...
I thought he mostly signed his name as "Dr. John Smith"?
---
Silence is consent.