Judge Waxes Comedic On Whether You Can Trademark Quilted Diamonds On Toilet Paper
from the toilet-paper! dept
Bryan points us to this bit of fun from a judge in opening his ruling in a case over the ability to trademark "quilted diamonds" on toilet paper. The appeals court ruling by Judge Terence Evans opens (as pointed out by Michael Barclay at the link above) in a rather amusing fashion, in clearly mocking the very fact that two consumer products giants, Georgia Pacific and Kimberly Clark are even bothering to fight over the ability to put "quilted diamonds" on toilet paper:Toilet paper. This case is about toilet paper. Are there many other things most people use every day but think very little about? We doubt it. But then again, only a select few of us work in the rarefied air inhabited by top-rate intellectual property lawyers who specialize in presenting and defending claims of unfair competition and trademark infringement under the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. �� 1051 et seq. And the lawyers on both sides of this dispute are truly firstrate. Together they cite some 119 cases and 20 federal statutes (albeit with a little overlap) in their initial briefs. We are told that during the �expedited� discovery period leading up to the district court decision we are called upon to review, some 675,000 pages of documents were produced and more than a dozen witnesses were deposed. That�s quite a record considering, again, that this case is about toilet paper.If you'd like to see where it goes from there, you can read the full decision (pdf), but I will say that, given those three opening paragraphs, it's hard not to read the rest of the ruling without thinking that Judge Evans would prefer to be dealing with pretty much any other case rather than one about a dispute on quilted diamonds on toilet paper.
We�ll start by introducing the combatants. In the far corner, from an old cotton-producing state (Dixie: �I wish I was in the land of cotton, old times there are not forgotten.�) and headquartered in the area (Atlanta) where Scarlett O�Hara roamed Tara in Margaret Mitchell�s epic Gone With the Wind, we have the Georgia-Pacific Company. Important to this case, and more than a bit ironic, is that the name of Georgia-Pacific�s flagship toilet paper is Quilted Northern. In the near corner, headquartered in the north, in Neenah, Wisconsin (just minutes away from Green Bay), and a long way from the land of cotton, we have the Kimberly-Clark Corporation. Ironically, its signature toilet paper brand is called Cottonelle.
The claim in this case is that a few of Kimberly-Clark�s brands of toilet paper are infringing on Georgia-Pacific�s trademark design. But again, this case is about toilet paper, and who really pays attention to the design on a roll of toilet paper? The parties, however, are quick to inform us that in a $4 billion dollar industry, designs are very important. Market share and significant profits are at stake. So with that, we forge on.
Update: Title changed, as the original was misleading. There was an awkward phrasing in the judges statement about the amount of documents in discovery which suggested that the judges themselves were asked to read all 675,000 pages, but he's really just noting that so many pages were produced during discovery...
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Filed Under: toilet paper, trademark
Companies: georgia pacific, kimberly clark
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Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!?!?!?
Maybe one of the companies will attempt to bribe him with a life supply of toilet paper. And not the half ply crap either!
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The pattern on TP is important enough to the players involved to have taken it to court. The judge should keep the comedy routine for amateur nights at the Comedy Hole, and get back to taking his job seriously.
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No detail of 14 trillion dollar economies are left to chance.
Corporations grow to exceed a critical boundary at some point so that the "marginal cost" of a lawsuit is nearly zero, and since a great deal is at stake, they'll sue on any pretext. The out-of-bounds growth of corporatized stupidity argues for limiting the size of corporations. America was not founded for benefit of corporations.
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On a serious note, how do you trademark a common quilting pattern just because it is on TP?
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an oasis in the desert
I beg to differ; it looks to me as if the judge is enjoying himself quite a lot, taking this rare opportunity to exercise some wit in his ruling.
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Re: No detail of 14 trillion dollar economies are left to chance.
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Re: No detail of 14 trillion dollar economies are left to chance.
What I really want is government transparency, but we're not going to get that...
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Corporation 1 "Dude, that's our logo that your customers are wiping their shit on. Only we can do that."
Corporation 2 "Guess what we think of your logo?"
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Dilbert
"Please rise for the honorable Judge Stone Cold Steve Austin"
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The next case will be...
I best have a lawyer ready.
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Anyone else feel this is a new low for intellectual pooperty?
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If we assume that books have an average of about 300 pages (not unreasonable for a relatively large story), the judge would have to read the equivalent of 2250 books!!
But that's nothing. If the judge reads one page per minute, and if he didn't have to stop to eat, drink or bathe, he'd be doing it for ~468 days non-stop!! That would take some endurance!
And all of this because of some toiled paper pattern? Has this world gone mad!?
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Toilet paper
I'm curious: if the judge wipes his ass with those documents, is he infringing?
One only hopes we'll find out.
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Even judged need to break the monotony somehow.
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http://www.poe-news.com/stories.php?poeurlid=18961
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When the judge renders his opinion...
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Re: No detail of 14 trillion dollar economies are left to chance.
You know, it does argue for that but it could just as easily argue for a limit on what pretexts one could sue over.
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If the 675,000 pages are printed on toilet paper...
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Re: Dilbert
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That's rather the problem.
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You, sir, must not read Robert Jordan.
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Serious stuff
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T.P.
One of these days someone will find a way to wipe our butts with microwaves or something, and T.P. will become obsolete. A few lawyers will be out of jobs; maybe they'll just go out and T.P. each others' houses.
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Mixed feelings about the humor
But then I remember the request for Supreme Court review that I did about twenty-five years ago, arising out of an opinion by First Circuit Judge Bruce Selya, who is notorious for maximizing the number of obscure words in his opinions. He wrote a decision dismissing a lawsuit that has been brought on behalf of nearly a hundred workers in Puerto Rico who had lost their jobs when a women's underwear factory "reorganized." http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/835/11/296423/ Judge Selya just could not get over the fact that the factory made women's underwear, and reading the opinion made me wonder whether he has put more effort into inserting double entendres than into making his legal decision. Meanwhile, ninety women were out of a job.
Not that I feel so badly about the fact that Georgia Pacific will have to accept a limited term on its monopoly of the diamond pattern that patent gives it, instead of the indefinite that a trademark would have given it.
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Re: Dilbert
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Headline is Wrong
No judge would characterize an attorney that attached so many pages to a motion as "firstrate."
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Since the tread patterns of tires are functional, and the company wouldn't want to put itself in the position of claiming the patterns are not functional, those cases aren't likely to happen.
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I don't.
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Re: Headline is Wrong
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http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/4777993/fulltext.html
Actually, I think it's been done, but while I could find a couple indirect references my Google-foo wasn't good enough to find records of actual tread-pattern litigation.
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Re: Mixed feelings about the humor
Sounds like this Judge Selya needs to get out more. Somebody has to make women's underwear, after all. I bet that somewhere, somehow, is a factory that makes men's underwear, too.
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I would not be surprised at all to learn that there are patents on tire tread patterns.
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Re: No detail of 14 trillion dollar economies are left to chance.
Finally you scored one. The world is ran by money. Just like our beloved MAFIAA who chooses litigation over understanding ;)
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I think they should stop being gay, make the paper plain and save themselves the cost. And maybe give us discounts.
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1) That it's not overpriced.
2) That it doesn't fall into 1,000 pieces when you wipe.
Maybe these two turd scoopers could be a little cheaper, or at least invest more in quality, if they weren't wasting so much money on legal battles for something maybe 1% of the population even notices, much less cares about.
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Here's an idea. . . .
(similar to World Imaginary Property Organization)
Kimberly Clark will change its product name to: iPaper.
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Previously? Same pattern, to my untrained eye, regardless of brand or ply.
They are pressed with a pattern to hold the plies together.
It only costs us money when some a**hole feels they were rubbed the wrong way.
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Am I the only one that parsed that title and instantly thought of a new type of toilet paper that waxes while you wipe?
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Personally I wouldn't recognize the difference between:
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
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\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
vs
/\|/|\/|\/|\/|\/
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\/|\|/\| /\|/\|/\
Butt print "Cottonelle" or "Quilted Northern" and it is pretty obvious.
Maybe there should be flash cards with each pack so you can study the pattern/name correlation while you are sitting passing the time away.
hehehe... I typed "butt".
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That is purely a matter of function though. Like being able to tell the difference between an open end wrench that will easily slip off a nut and a box end that won't slip as easily. Good call from the judge.
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Damn, good one.
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Re: If the 675,000 pages are printed on toilet paper...
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Re: If the 675,000 pages are printed on toilet paper...
That statement is awfully close to the Tootsie Pop commercial. You will be receiving a Cease and Desist letter shortly.
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Re: an oasis in the desert
.
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Dated this 19 day of July, 2011.
MARTIN J. SHEEHAN Kenton Circuit Judge
http://www.wlwt.com/r/28739998/detail.html
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Asking the judge (or, actually, the judge's clerk) to read 119 opinions and 20 statutes (or, actually, portions thereof) is in a whole different ballpark.
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Basically, you can't get trade dress protection for something claimed in a utility patent.
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Confused
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Quilted Pattern on Quilts
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