Zazzle.com Thinks Depictions of Pi Are Protected Intellectual Property

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Zazzle.com Thinks Depictions of Pi Are Protected Intellectual Property

Posted by Soulskill on Friday May 30, 2014 @04:20AM from the attention-i-have-trademarked-the-space-between-letters-please-stop-using-it dept.

Byteme writes: "A number of Zazzle.com users have had their art and products removed from the site after a man named Paul Ingrisano was granted a trademark for 'Pi Productions' using a logo that consists of this freely available version of the pi symbol from the Wikimedia website combined with a period. He made infringement claims against several websites, and Zazzle took down many clothing products that featured designs using the pi symbol. When users called them on it, they locked a public forum thread and said they're evaluating Ingrisano's complaint."

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damn by zlives · 2014-05-30 04:23 · Score: 5, Funny

i better get to work on my "/." logo copy right
1. Re:damn by RabidReindeer · 2014-05-30 06:25 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Great. Now that you have your IP laws in order, you should probably get around to doing away with your kings and queens. It's been embarrassing to have them for over two hundred years now. While you're at it, drop your official state religions, so you can go from being theocratic monarchies to secular democracies.
  But yeah, super great that your trademark laws are so flexible.
  Hey, what's wrong with a theocratic monarchy? We've been building one in the USA for the last 30 years!
Prior Art Exists. by swschrad · 2014-05-30 04:25 · Score: 3, Funny

God invented Pi. don't get his lawyers into this...

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if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
1. Re:Prior Art Exists. by Infoport · 2014-05-30 04:41 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  You would think so, but unfortunately all the good lawyers went somewhere else...
2. Re:Prior Art Exists. by ackthpt · 2014-05-30 04:57 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Paul desperately needs to be kicked into a large, deep pit while someone shouts, "This is Sparta" or suchlike.
  
  --
  
  A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
3. Re:Prior Art Exists. by Jason+Levine · 2014-05-30 06:33 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  The reason all the devils are here is that they can't stand Hell anymore. It hasn't been the same since all those lawyers arrived.
  
  --
  My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
4. Re:Prior Art Exists. by sootman · 2014-05-30 07:53 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Good old joke:
  
  An Engineer died and went to see St. Peter who told him that he was sorry but could not let the engineer into heaven. At first the conditions bothered the engineer but after a while he started to make improvements. He added an escalator, running water, and after a couple of months even air conditioning. Of course eventualy God heard about the changes down below. God phoned up the devil and explained that a mistake had been made and that the engineer would have to be moved up to heaven. The devil said no, because he liked the changes too. God told the devil "This is your last chance. Send that engineer up here or I'll sue you!" The devil laughed and said "Ha, where are you going to find a lawyer?"
  
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  Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Rewriting textbooks by marciot · 2014-05-30 05:15 · Score: 4, Funny

That specifically covers the stylized "pi mathematical symbol followed by a period."
Oh dear. I guess we'll have to fix all textbooks to remove infringing uses of pi at the end of a sentence..
Example of infringing use:
The ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter is .
Non-infringing alternatives:
The ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter is !
The ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter is :)
, what the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter is.
Re:Free market strikes again... by OakDragon · 2014-05-30 05:45 · Score: 3, Funny

we just think that your fairy tale pure capitalism can't exist, and that its supporters are naive dupes of the cronies and neo-feudalists.
I thought we were an autonomous collective.

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Dark Reflection
Re:Free market strikes again... by ericloewe · 2014-05-30 06:01 · Score: 3, Funny

You're fooling yourself! We're living in a dictatorship, a self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes...