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Zazzle.com Thinks Depictions of Pi Are Protected Intellectual Property
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."
Slashdot mucked up the formatting. (Of course, I should have seen this in the preview.)
Just replace "I 3" with "I <3" above.
Also, here's his new trademark: http://trademarks.justia.com/854/81/i-3-85481027.html
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
This is the trademark: http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=85785006&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch
It's for the Pi symbol followed by a period. Literally. "The mark consists of the pi mathematical symbol followed by a period." So if I had a shirt that said "I like Pi." (using the symbol for Pi), my shirt would be in violation of his trademark. Furthermore, he might try claiming that just showing Pi by itself would be "confusingly similar." Not that he'd be successful, but he could threaten lawsuits which might make others back down due to an inability to fight a legal battle.
He's also filed for the common Internet "I Love" shorthand: I <3 http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=85481027&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch
As he doesn't currently seem to be USING these trademarks at all, he should automatically lose all rights to them.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Paul Ingrisano
1933 73rd street
Brooklyn, NY 11204
Apperently, he's an arteeest.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I'm sure you are joking there is one benefit of having the old monarchies remaining.
While the kings in Europe seldom have a say in day to day politics there are occasionally leftover laws that transfer the command of the army to the king in the case of war. (The benefits of having a single strong leader in the event of crisis and so on.)
This means that the government can't declare war on terrorists, drugs or videogames left and right.
Or rather, they can, but declaring war gives power to someone else than the one declaring war. It becomes a lot less fun that way.