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Dear Judged > Archive
Dear Judged
Copywriting A CatchphraseWhat is the
procedure for patenting a phrase? I’m thinking about coining
“going matriarchal,” the unlikely successor to “going
postal.”
Let’s face it—mothers are to the
21st century what post-office workers were to the
20th: blathering insane, to wit. Can we recap?
There’s the Texas mother who allegedly tried to incinerate her
children (the latest in a whole crop of Texas “matriarchals”
who have tried to hang, drown, shoot, and otherwise eradicate their
progeny), the Florida mother who urged her daughter to retaliate against
the 10-year-old who had bitch slapped the daughter the day before, the
Maryland mother who harbored fetal remains from earlier miscarriages (no
doubt good conversation pieces in case company should drop by), and, of
course, Ms. Spears, who pantyless midnight romps hardly bear
discussion…
Who am I kidding? Of course they
do! The latest antic, as I’m sure you know, is the Chateau Marmont
episode in which Mommy Dearest saw fit to smear her face with food,
prompting other patrons to request her removal. Good luck there. I tried
to request her removal in 1998, and all I got was a restraining order. Hit
me baby one more time indeed.
Also, do you
think I have a good chance of getting my patent accepted? Unlike such
bogus catchphrases as Trump’s “You’re fired” or
Hilton’s “That’s hot,” the merits of “going
matriarchal” are numerous and widely applicable. Why leave language
suffering in the dusty annals of 18th century prescriptivism, eh
Judge? “Going matriarchal”—the ne plus ultra
axiom.
You heard it here first.
Tally ho!
Not a girl, not yet a
woman
Not Yet A Girl, Not
posted 2007-09-24 17:10:41
Dear MommaLaw,
Dear Not A Girl,
Not Yet A Woman,
Wow, now this is a loaded
question. Doth I detect a bit of not-so-subtle residual
hostility toward your own mother? No doubt, but I’ll
save the ‘psycho’ analysis for later.
The thing you need to know is that copyrighting is an unsavory
business, as fickle and unpredictable as an extra-marital affair (just ask
Charlie Sheen). You might think that your own ideas and
creations would belong solely to you, but with six billion other
co-habitants vying for profit – or a spot on a Forbes
List—chances are you’ll confront someone at some point who says
your ideas are, well, theirs.
Names, images, sounds, words, etc. tend to fall into the legal
arena of ‘grey’ where things are not so starkly black and white
(unlike, say, the panel of ‘The View’). For the
most part, when you create something it remains your own and no copyright
is necessary. If what you’ve made becomes designated
for public consumption, however, then you need to copyright it and
aggressively and actively protect it from infringement.
Public battles over copyrights can be good for business:
everyone from The Beatles to Walt Disney to Harry Potter author
J.K. Rowling have found themselves involved in nasty legal fights over the
right to certain terms and expressions, which can both fuel and fatigue
public interest. It must be said that some phrases are best
let go: I mean, how much cringing and teeth-gashing has “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”
caused?
But when it comes to copyrighting
everyday, verbal phrases, then we get into even murkier
territory. We can all go around saying idiotic things like
“That’s hot!” referring to either soap stars or Thai
food, but if someone actually goes out and applies for a
trademark—like Paris Hilton did— then we are not allowed to
profit from any product using the phrase, though we may still
certainly use, abuse, and mock it, as Hallmark did in its recent
Paris's First Day as a Waitress card series (“Watch out,
that plate of Schezwan is, like, hot!”) for which Ms. Hilton sued the
greeting card giant (for the record, parody does not infringe on copyright-
remember Al Franken vs. Faux(Fox) News?). It seems that
millionaire heiresses and right wing propaganda media machines are not
immune from litigious-wretch syndrome.
And who can
forget the ludicrous and contemptible lawsuit brought by America’s
reigning Douche Bag and Misogynist-In-Chief, Donald Trump, against the
plethora of independent pottery-and-fire businesses across the nation named
“You’re Fired!” which the Dump Truck (copyright Rosie
O'Donnell) happened to make into a popular catchphrase on his now
defunct reality series.
It just so
happens that the most prominent owner of these small pottery shops, Susan
Brenner, resides in the same community yours truly grew up in, her business
being located right down the street from my parents’ home in
Glenview, IL. Brenner is the most aggressive and defiant of
the business owners Trump has confronted, refusing to relinquish her hold
on the trademark she had applied for and held since 1997. She
did neglect to pay the renewal fee which became an issue when
Trump—while neglecting the family of red squirrels dwelling on his
head—decided to market his phrase on merchandise like t-shirts and
coffee mugs, in turn begging the question: what kind of billionaire shills
off of trinkets you can only buy at the NBC store in Rockefeller
Center? Oh yeah, this is the same ‘billionaire’
who hawks steaks on QVC . . .
For your own
education, and for that of other woefully ill-informed halfwit
“billionaires”, the phrase “You’re Fired” is
a centuries-old, non-generic term deriving from the feudal age in
Mendip, England and appears in its original legal form as the
following:
[i]f any man... do pick or steale any lead or ore to the
value of XIIID, the Lord or his Officer may arrest all his lead and ore
House or hearthes with his Grooves and Workes and keep them in forfeit...
and shall take the person that hath soe affeended and bring him where his
house or worke and all his tooles and instruments are... and put him into
his house or worke and set fire in all together about him and banish
him
Basically, it says that any man convicted of stealing lead
or ore from his Lord or Officer shall be dealt with by being placed inside
his home and his house set afire . . . I’m guessing feudal England
offered few unemployment benefits.
Ultimately, it all boils down to the double prong of celebrity and
profit: local business owners can benefit from a long-standing pun name for
businesses, but they face a tough challenge against national business
conglomerates— courts will usually side the party who stands to
profit most (hey, this is America). But score one
for the little guy: a court upheld Brenner’s right to her trademark
in its original local vicinity, while the Dump known as Trump is free to
profit from bobble heads and magnetic pins . . . and the
exploitation of young women in his never-ending series of international
beauty pageants. Which other industry is going to produce his
future ex-wives?
If only his
mother had gone “matriarchal” on him . . . sigh . .
.
The Judge
Dear Judged > Archive
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Dear Judged
Dear Your Honor,
Dear Judge,
Do you ever experience any physical danger in the courtroom? You do deal with all those criminals, right?
Sincerly,
Concerned Bailiff's Mommy
+ more Judged Dear
+ write to Your Honor
Do you ever experience any physical danger in the courtroom? You do deal with all those criminals, right?
Sincerly,
Concerned Bailiff's Mommy
+ more Judged Dear
+ write to Your Honor
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