If I didn't actually read the patent applications I would believe that this stuff is invented by opponents of the system. Techdirt has a posting describing the lastest invention: the phone that can play mp3s and access the internet. The patent is here. The lawsuit against every maker of smart phones was filed moments after the application was approved. This is not an invention: it is a cocktail party wishlist: wouldn't be great if...

Here are some other inventions that no doubt have been mentioned millions of times by thousands of people all of whom had the common decency not to write it down and try to get a patent on it. I invite our readers to submit more; who knows it may be prior art one day.

*Wouldn't it be great if I put a pillow on that chair, it would be so much more comfortable.

*Wouldn't it be great if you could shop online while you were flying on an airplane and have the stuff you ordered waiting for you at the gate when the flight arrived.

*Wouldn't it be great is spaceships had built-in music players.

*Wouldn't it be great if flashlights had disco strobes that could be used for dancing.

Wouldn't it be great if...add your own.

Let's make a contest: submit your ideas, we'll have a vote of the bloggers to pick the top 5 and post them. If we make a fortune patenting any of the ideas and suing everyone already making the product, we'll share our winnings.

Jeffrey H. Birnbaum at the Washington Post begins, "Trial lawyers sue each other all the time. Now they are suing each other over what to call themselves." The story goes on link here; the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA) decided that it was poor PR to keep the distrusted term, trial lawyer, in the title and rechristened themselves as the American Association for Justice (AAJ). Another group of lawyers formed a competing group, the American Trial Lawyers Association (ATLA). AAJ then went to court, arguing the new group's name confused people and violated its trademark on the ATLA acronym. How can you trademark an acronym?

Then a third group, the American College of Trial Lawyers, sued, arguing that the name would confuse people with it. If you are confused as to who has the best case, hire a trial lawyer. It is nice to see them taking each other's money. And making current IP law look ridiculous.

Two small stories in the NYTimes report on more silliness in the IP field link here. In one, "Louis Vuitton, the luxury goods maker, has won a French lawsuit that contended that a music video by Britney Spears violated counterfeiting laws." What did Spears do? In a video "Ms. Spears appears in a pink Hummer; one shot shows fingers drumming on a dashboard upholstered with what looks like a Vuitton design, embossed with the LV logo." She should have used a Renault.

In the other, "the Red Hot Chili Peppers are suing Showtime Networks over the new television series "Californication," which is also the name of the band's 1999 album and one of its songs." What next?

These make me think these suits are mainly brought for the publicity they get.

Via Christian Zimmermann: a patent on the combover

Starbucks is suing Conga Coffee and Tea, a tiny two-store operation in Michigan, for trademark infringement link here. Both use green circles around a small center picture, so there is a vague resemblance. But this is a case of an elephant trying to stamp on a mouse. Incidentally, Conga has been in business with the same trademark since 1996, and went unnoticed until now.

T-Mobile claims to own the color magenta, ostensibly having put it under trademark. The law on this is complicated beyond belief, which allows an otherwise ridiculous determination to continue to be enforced. Read all about it here and here.

Who is going to sue at great expense to get it overturned?

Here is another IP as a Joke item. Nate Anderson reports that a player in the virtual world game Second Life had "her Nomine-branded avatar skins allegedly ripped off by another user who has been selling counterfeit copies for his own profit." She has now gone to court for violation of her copyright link here. Since the skins can be sold to others for "virtual" Linden dollars, for which there is a real-world dollar market among other game players, the skins can be said to have some value, but only among the demented.

For more on the case, read this link here

It will be interesting to see where the court takes it, in another example of the unreality of IP law. Why not set up avatars of lawyers and a court and a judge and a Congress to revise the law? Then the real-world judge could argue that he does not have jurisdiction and the suit has been brought in the wrong court. Problem solved.

Every day brings new outrageous stories concerning intellectual property. Today's by Jordana Lewis involves something this blog reported on in the last few days, publicity rights, and adds a new wrinkle, California's Dead Celebrities Law link here.

You have to read the whole story to get how "property" can be created from nothing more than a memory. It is a stretch to go from saying that permission is required to invade some dead person's privacy to saying that it can be sold. Then one must ask what public purpose is served by this monstrosity. Perhaps the welfare of lawyers? Or the widow of a dead acting coach? link here

Here is the Wikipedia article "Personality Rights" , which covers the so-called right of publicity. Note that in the U.S. this latter right developed out of the "right of privacy," which I think was pioneered by Louis Brandeis in a Supreme Court decision and later elaborated in a famous 1962 Supreme Court case, Griswold v. Connecticut .

Among the many inner contradictions of the right of publicity is the fact that, contrary to what I posted in a previous comment, in the U.S. it applies in only 28 states, not in all 50. So here we have an alleged right that doesn't apply universally. Where is John Locke when we need him? At least "fair use" applies across the board to all copyrighted material in all jurisdictions. (Excuse me while I sneak into your garage and take your car out for a spin around the neighborhood. It's just fair use and I promise to bring it back. And then I'll be hitting a few serves with your tennis racket. And then to sample some food in your fridge. If I don't like it my dog will put a sample on your carpet. :-)

Indiana, a state I spent part of my misspent youth in, is the league leader in this right. Not surprisingly, California and New York have been in the forefront of pushing this right, thanks undoubtedly to the prominence of the entertainment industry (and entertainment attorneys) in these states.

The right of publicity boils down to the alleged right not to have one's image or likeness commercially used without permission or compensation. Although I don't think Tom G. Palmer considered this aspect of "IP" in his 1990 Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy essay "Are Patents and Copyrights Morally Justified? The Philosophy of Property Rights and Ideal Objects" [PDF], you can probably substitute "publicity right" for "copyright" and understand why this right is a non sequitur.

I'm putting this post under the topic "IP as a Joke."

Consumerist takes us to Great Moments In Commercial History: The Back Up, a patented gun rack for one's bed link here. Don't be surprised in bed by some intruder bent on no good. But patenting it? You can see the patent and all the backup as well link here.