Congressional Hearings on USPTO Telework: Farce or Travesty?

A joint hearing held by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the House Judiciary Committee heard testimony this week regarding telework at the USPTO (story here).

I have no doubt that some examiners are gaming the system.  It has always been thus.  

That said, here's an interesting fact:  in 2013, House members drew a salary of $174,000. Not bad, considering the median household income in 2013 was right around $52K.  But in 2013 the House was in session for 113 days.  That works out to an annual salary, for a 50-week year of five-day work weeks, of just under $385,000.  

But who knows how much of that time they actually spent on the people's business?  Fact is, nobody is keeping track of the hours that our representatives actually work.  They work for US, the taxpayers. How are we supposed to know if we're getting the work that we're paying for?  And I mean working on the stuff we send them to Washington to do, not working on raising money so they can get re-elected.  They can do that on their own time.  

So I have a suggestion for the House: no more hearings about patent examiners' work habits until representatives are willing to be accountable to us for their own work habits.

Wrigley, WTF?

According to this story in Above the Law, Wrigley (the chewing gum people) is opposing the application of Perfetti (the Mentos people) to register the mark "WTF."  Perfetti, which likes slightly off-center advertising, apparently plans to use "WTF" and the phrase "What The Fresh" to market its minty products.  Wrigley argues that consumers will confuse these marks with its own "Winterfresh" gum.


Yeah.  That's what I think of when I hear "WTF."

What's the Spanish word for "chutzpah?"

"A former executive with Spain's main copyright organization has been sentenced to prison for spending €40,000 ($50,000) in brothels using a corporate credit card, with a judge describing as "nonsense" the man's claims that the visits were work-related."

Full article here

Likelihood of Confusion, Part II

According to this story at Bloomberg.com, Apple is going to call its watch the "Apple Watch" rather than "iWatch" because the European trademark for "iWatch" is owned by Dublin-based Probendi.

According to the story, Probendi plans to market its own smartwatch and call it iWatch.  Now here's the confusing part: the iWatch is going to be an Android watch.  

Pizza flavor not subject to Federal TM protection

Last week, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas (Galveston) issued a decision (link here) holding that the flavor of pizza is not subject to trademark protection, because (a) it's not distinctive, and (b) it's functional.

As to the second reason: I agree completely. 

As the first: it's Texas pizza.  How can they tell?

Are tweets subject to copyright?

Emma Pauw, "social media writer" at We Talk Social (http://www.wetalksocial.co.uk/) asks the question in a piece in B2C (link here).

Actually, the question she asks is "Can You Copyright a Tweet?"

Under the Berne Convention, copyright vests upon creation. So you don't have to "copyright" anything.  It is, or it isn't.  Now, if you want to enforce your copyright, you may have to register your work with a government agency - in the U.S., the Copyright Office is part of the Library of Congress. If you want to sue for copyright infringement in U.S. District Court, you need to register it with the Copyright Office.  But the registration doesn't "copyright" the work.  

That's not the interesting part. 

Under U.S. law, copyright "subsists ... in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device."  17 USC 102(a).

A tweet clearly can be an "original work of authorship."  But it doesn't have to be.  Let's assume that it is. (For a serious discussion of this issue, check out this post from WIPO).

A tweet "can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated...with the aid of a machine or device."  

The question is:  is a tweet "fixed in [a] tangible medium of expression?"  I say "yes," because if it's possible to copy a tweet, (and it clearly is), then it's "fixed" enough to qualify.  Put another way, I don't know of anything that can be copied exactly, that's not  considered fixed in a tangible medium of expression.  

And of course, if you want to sue somebody for infringing your copyrighted tweet, you have to send it to the Copyright Office, which means that you have to "fix" it so you can submit it. So that's that.

Should you bother?  Probably not.  

In other news, Don Henley is still...not dead

Everybody's talking about Michelle Lee being named as the new USPTO Director. This has to qualify as the Least Surprising Patent-Related News Story of 2014.  So that's all I have to say about that.

Instead, I want to talk about Don Henley.  

Yes, that Don Henley.  Don has sued clothing retailer Duluth Trading Company for trademark infringement (full story here).  They sell, among other things, Henley shirts. 

Like that.  

According to this entry in Wikipedia, the Henley shirt is "so named because this particular style of shirt was the traditional uniform of rowers in the English town of Henley-on-Thames."  Nothing whatsoever to do with the Eagles' drummer.  So why's Don suing?

DTC recently sent out an email ad promoting their Henley shirts with the slogan, "Don a Henley and Take it easy."

Like that.  BTW, check out Henley's hair in that clip.  Amazing.  That, kids, is '70s hair.

Anyway, apparently DTC didn't ask Don's permission before sending out the aforementioned ad.  What is clear is that Don has no sense of humor when it comes to somebody trying to trade in on his mojo.

Speaking of Don Henley's mojo, if you haven't heard Mojo Nixon's "Don Henley Must Die" you can give it a listen here:

And then read this article from the Austin Chronicle about a time more than 20 years ago when Don did have a sense of humor.