Can You Violate A Patent With 16 Characters On An M&M?

from the challenges... dept

It's that holiday time and the makers of M&M candies have decided to let you print your own message on an M&M -- limited to 8 characters each on two lines (which seems pretty tight for the size of an M&M anyway). It's not surprising that there's a ton of legalese added about what you can and cannot print in your 16 characters, but as LawMeme points out, how exactly would someone go about violating a patent in those 16 characters?
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  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 21 Dec 2004 @ 4:01am

    No Subject Given

    So funny, I was just there and was really surprised at the "allowed / not allowed" instructions (and realized they must have people reviewing the submissions).

    I suppose they don't want to be held as liable, but I can go to any print shop in the country (or use any laser printer in the world) and violate as many trademarks as I like.... without the print shop or printer mfg (or paper maker) being held liable.

    Weird

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    shawn, 21 Dec 2004 @ 7:28am

    No Subject Given

    I think more than worrying about trademark infringement, they're more worried about commercial use of this. They say that it's not for commercial use in the terms and whatnot, but an easier way to enforce it is to just disallow anything that looks like it might be trademarked or copywrited. If I were them, I wouldn't want random people or companies using these M&M's to promote their own business.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    nun, 31 Oct 2006 @ 9:37am

    this

    why would someone want to put 16 characters on a M&M?

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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