DailyDirt: Chickens Versus Eggs...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The American food chain can be fascinating, as well as disgusting. There are happy, free-range chickens. There are also apparently a lot of very unhappy, caged chickens. The treatment of farm animals seems to vary quite a bit, and the economics of the food industry doesn't always account for the well-being of animals. However, the situation may be slowly changing as more humane techniques are developed, but until science figures out how to grow tasty meat in a petri dish, we'll still have to kill animals if we're going to continue to eat them.

• By 2020, nearly all US chicken egg producers will stop the practice of culling male chicks. Male chickens that aren't specifically bred to grow fast (and obviously can't lay eggs) are economically useless to the chicken industry. So instead of killing male chicks in a blender shortly after they hatch, their embryos will simply never be allowed to gestate significantly. The chicken GATTACA future is here.
• Vegans have discovered an egg substitute called aquafaba that's very simple to obtain. It's just chickpea brine -- the leftover water from a can of chickpeas. This stuff can be whipped like eggs and baked in a variety of desserts.
• Japanese high school students have shown the world that a chicken egg can be incubated without a shell -- and still produce a live chick. This isn't the first time this technique has been used, but it's probably the first time an obscure scientific paper's procedure have been reproduced and watched online by millions of people.

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: aquafaba, biotech, chicken, chickpea, farming, food, in-ovo sexing, murderless meat, vegan egg

Appeals Court: No, You Can't Copyright A Chicken Sandwich

from the though-you-can-indict-a-ham-sandwich dept

There's a famous line about grand juries and their willingness to indict anything prosecutors put in from of them, that they will "indict a ham sandwich" (coined by a judge who was later indicted himself in an effort to prove the point). But, someone apparently asked, can you copyright a chicken sandwich? This apparently serious legal question was recently taken up by the First Circuit appeals court to review a dispute about who owns the idea for a chicken sandwich.

The backstory is that a guy named Norbeto Colon Lorenzana, working for Church's Chicken (owned by South American Restaurant Corporation, or SARCO) in Puerto Rico, thought that the restaurant should add a chicken sandwich to the menu. His bosses tested out some recipes and settled on the following recipe (which does not seem all that original): "a fried chicken breast patty, lettuce, tomato, American cheese, and garlic mayonnaise on a bun." Church's dubbed this the "Pechu Sandwich" and apparently it sold pretty well at Church's Chicken. Colon apparently decided that because it was his idea, he deserved a cut of every sale. And thus he sued for trademark and copyright violations (sorta, as you'll see)... because popular culture keeps falsely telling people that "intellectual property" must "protect" any possible "idea" they ever come up with, no matter how common or obvious it is, and no matter whether or not those ideas are even remotely protectable.

The lower court correctly laughed this out of court, and Colon appealed, only to find the appeals court similarly unamused. Not surprisingly, apparently Colon's original complaint was so devoid of actual legal arguments that the court decided to "generously glean a claim for violations of the Copyright Act and a second claim under the Lanham Act for trademark infringement." As the ruling notes in a footnote, Colon didn't actually state either such thing, but the court said he claim close enough, and then in a reply to the company's motion to dismiss, Colon clearly was relying on copyright law, so it's a "copyright claim" even if the original complaint failed to make such a claim. The court also notes that "Colon does not seize upon the generosity of the district court and fails to develop any argument in his appellate briefing related to trademark infringement," so it drops the (bogus) trademark arguments entirely.

Either way, even with the court "generously" saying there's a copyright claim, there isn't actually a copyright claim, because this is a freaking chicken sandwich.

Contrary to Colón's protests on appeal, the district court properly determined that a chicken sandwich is not eligible for copyright protection. This makes good sense; neither the recipe nor the name Pechu Sandwich fits any of the eligible categories and, therefore, protection under the Copyright Act is unwarranted. A recipe -- or any instructions -- listing the combination of chicken, lettuce, tomato, cheese, and mayonnaise on a bun to create a sandwich is quite plainly not a copyrightable work.... As for the "Pechu Sandwich" moniker, we have previously held that "copyright protection simply does not extend to 'words and short phrases, such as names, titles, and slogans.'"

The court separately rejects Colon's claim that SARCO registered the trademark in the sandwich by fraud (apparently in not giving it to him or something). The court again has trouble figuring out what he means, because he has no explanation:

We need not linger over the potential elements of a Section 38 claim or the application of Rule 9(b) because the complaint fails for a more fundamental reason. It simply fails to sufficiently allege that any false statement exists. Colon merely offers conjecture about SARCO's actions and intentions. He avers that SARCO "intentionally, willfully, fraudulently and maliciously procured the registration of Plaintiff's creation in the Patent and Trademark Office without his consent and . . . with the intent to injure the Plaintiffs," but the complaint is silent as to any facts to support such conclusions.

These kinds of lawsuits are what you get when you keep telling people that ideas are "ownable" and that anyone who does anything with your idea must be somehow infringing on your rights. Thankfully, the courts have quickly dumped this, but it's still a waste of time and resources.

Filed Under: 1st circuit, chicken, chicken sandwich, copyright, noberto colon lorenzana, ownership society, pechu sandwich, recipes, trademark
Companies: church's chicken, sarco

DailyDirt: How Clean Are Our Chickens?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

For years, there has been concern over using antibiotics in our food supply, feeding animals "sub-therapeutic" medicines that make them grow bigger. The chicken industry seems to be shifting slowly towards removing certain antibiotics from its farms, but are consumers really aware of what the progress is (and isn't)?

• The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) covers a lot of areas, and one topic that seems to gross out our European neighbors is our chlorinated chicken. While Europeans have painstakingly reduced the incidence of salmonella from their chicken farms with breeding and testing procedures, US growers just give our chickens a bath in chlorinated water tanks. [url]
• The antibiotics tylosin and virginiamycin are used in chicken feed to help the birds gain weight and grow more efficiently. The problem is that these antibiotics are also "critically important" in human medicine, and the uncontrolled use of these drugs in our food chain could endanger the effectiveness of medicines and create superbugs for us. [url]
• Perdue Foods now raises an antibiotic-free chicken (well, no antibiotics that are used in human medicine, at least), claiming to be the first to do so for all of its hatcheries. Other chicken growers (eg. Tyson) have been testing antibiotic-free chickens for several years as well, with chickens raised with different kinds of antibiotic-like substances (aka ionophores). Perdue's chickens may also be treated with ionophores, but US farmers are trying to move closer and closer towards an antibiotic-free process. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: antibiotic-free, antibiotics, chicken, farming, food, food chain, ionophores, salmonella, superbugs, ttip, tylosin, virginiamycin
Companies: perdue foods, tyson

DailyDirt: No Bones About It

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Some folks want to suck out all the marrow of life, but apparently when it comes to fast food, it's much more expedient to just suck all the meat off the bones, grind it up with some other stuff, and fry it until it's a delicious golden brown. Chicken nuggets are popular with kids meals, and there are apparently various patented processes for cutting up chicken meat into innovative products. Here are just a few good nuggets on some fast food chicken items.

• What is a chicken nugget made of? An anecdotal analysis finds that some chicken nuggets (not McNuggets) are mostly fat (~56-58%), about 40-50% muscle meat, along with some bone fragments and breading and other bits. (And don't forget the BBQ sauce.) [url]
• McDonald's Canada took a film crew to document the process of making chicken nuggets. Did you ever notice that there are four distinct nugget shapes: the bell, the ball, the bow tie and the boot? If you want to see how the sausage nugget is made, check out the video. [url]
• KFC got on the boneless chicken wagon in 2013 to go after the 6 in 10 customers that say they prefer chicken meat without bones. Customers have to pay a little more to eat chicken without bones, so the convenience comes with a price. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: boneless, bones, chicken, fast food, food, mcnugget, meat, nuggets
Companies: kfc, mcdonalds

DailyDirt: Making Extinction Extinct

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Jurassic Park was just a movie -- there isn't really a practical way to pull intact dinosaur DNA from fossilized mosquitoes. But recently-extinct animal species might be cloned because we can actually gather intact DNA and cell fragments that can be manipulated more easily. Here are just a few examples of projects that could create animals that are now considered extinct.

• There are several TED talks on de-extinction, discussing cloning and various animals that could potentially be revived. We could learn a lot from figuring out how to take somewhat arbitrary DNA instructions and produce viable organisms. [url]
• Dolly the sheep was born in 1996, and in 2003, an extinct wild goat (Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica) was cloned, but it died with some major genetic defects. Since then, cloning techniques have gotten better, but re-creating an extinct animal is one thing. Raising a healthy animal that was once extinct is a completely different challenge. [url]
• At the Central Veterinary Research Laboratory in Dubai, scientists have reportedly engineered a male duck to produce chicken sperm that fathered a chicken. The process of introducing chicken DNA into the reproductive organs of a male duck embryo could presumably be used in other birds (especially for other birds that may be endangered). [url]
• An extinct Australian frog species has been brought back to life (almost). Scientists cloned an extinct frog (Rheobatrachus silus) by injecting its dead cell nucleus into a fresh egg of distantly-related frog, (Mixophyes fasciolatus), and observed the embryo grow -- but it didn't survive beyond a few days. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: biology, chicken, cloning, dna, duck, extinction, frog, genes, goat, species

Chick-fil-A Says 'Eat More Kale' Slogan Infringes On Its 'Eat Mor Chikin'

from the morons-in-a-hurry-don't-eat-chicken? dept

I have a friend who is obsessed with the fast food restaurant Chick-fil-A. Many years ago, he made me travel nearly two hours once just to get lunch there (the nearest one to the Bay Area is way outside of town on the way to Sacramento). Given all the talk about it, I expected it to be quite an amazing restaurant. I wasn't prepared for it to be a dingy mall fast-food/food court place. They make a decent chicken sandwich, but it's hardly worth going out of your way. Either way, I definitely won't be going out of my way for Chick-fil-A again, because I try not to patronize businesses that are insufferable intellectual property bullies. As a whole bunch of you have been submitting, the fast food restaurant has threatened a Vermont Artist for using the phrase "Eat More Kale." Chick-fil-A pretty clearly does not do a brisk business in kale. In fact, I'm pretty sure no kale has ever entered a Chick-fil-A kitchen. However, Chick-fil-A has an ongoing marketing campaign, involving cows urging people to "eat mor chikin." It has somehow decided that any version of "eat more" is too close and that morons in a hurry would be confused.

I'd really like Chick-fil-A to point out the moron in a hurry who would see "eat more kale" and suddenly get confused into biting into a clucking bird instead.

Now, it is worth noting that the artist, Bo Muller-Moore, may have brought this partially upon himself by applying for a trademark himself on the "eat more kale" slogan -- which is likely what prompted Chick-fil-A to send the letter opposing the trademark and challenging the phrase. This is what happens when we battle over who can try to lock up the English language. Either way, Chick-fil-A looks like a world class trademark bully, clearly overstepping the powers given to it under trademark law. "Eat mor chikin" is trademarkable not because of the phrase "eat more" but for the full phrase, including the misspellings. Pretending that any version of "eat more" is a trademark violation is simply an attempt to expand the trademark well beyond what is reasonable.

Filed Under: bo mueller-moore, bullying, chicken, eat more, kale, trademark
Companies: chick-fil-a

The Ridiculous Trademark Saga Of Kennedy Fried Chicken

from the and-we-don't-even-like-fried-chicken dept

More trademark madness coming to us via an article in the NY Times, which tells the story of Abdul Haye, who recently received a stamp of approval for the trademark on "Kennedy Fried Chicken." Now, there are all sorts of problems with this. First of all, Mr. Haye did not create Kennedy Fried Chicken. It was actually created by another guy (both men are from Afghanistan, and apparently much of this saga involves Afghani ex-patriots in New York City). Haye worked at one of a few Kennedy Fried Chickens many years ago, and then started his own (without the blessing or licensing from the originator). Apparently, this was common in the Afghani community, where there are a ton of Kennedy Fried Chickens, most of which have no relation to one another (think: Ray's, Original Ray's, Famous Ray's, etc. when it comes to pizza in NYC).

Separately, of course, the very name Kennedy Fried Chicken has a separate problem, which is that the folks at Kentucky Fried Chicken didn't appreciate the name and sued many years ago... and won. So there shouldn't be any Kennedy Fried Chickens at all. Except, what saved the original Kennedy Fried Chicken was Kentucky Fried Chicken's decision to drop its full name and revert to the nickname KFC, leading it to no longer pay much attention to the Kennedy Fried Chickens, which continued to explode. And, yes, the original Kennedy Fried Chicken was created on purpose to play off of the KFC name, with a nod towards JFK.

However, Mr. Haye, despite not coming up with the name, not being the first, and not really having any sort of "right" to the name, did apply and get a trademark on it... and has now started threatening other Afghani shop owners who use the name. He's sent out 300 letters to others, telling them they have to pay him or he'll sue. He claims their "poor-quality chicken is going to kill my reputation." Must I point out that he copied the name in the first place? Anyway, those KFCs don't seem to have much interest in either paying Mr. Haye or backing down at all.

"We won't pay a penny," huffed Nour Abdullah, the manager of Kennedy Fried Chicken on Junction Boulevard in Corona, Queens, which seems indistinguishable from Mr. Haye's except for the fried shrimp balls and gyros on the menu. "I can rename the shop Munir Fried Chicken after my son or even New Kennedy Fried Chicken. Then let's see what he’s going to do."

A few doors down, Najib Ullah, a chicken fryer from Kabul, was equally defiant. "Anyone can own a Kennedy, and I've never heard of this Abdul Haye," he said. "Every place has a different owner: same chicken, different menu. So what’s the problem?"

As for the guy who created the original Kennedy Fried Chicken, Zia Taeb, even though he's long been out of the business, he seems to suggest he might jump into the legal fray as well:

He insisted that he -- not Mr. Haye -- was the rightful owner of the Kennedy brand. "He won't win because I know my people, and Afghans will never pay him," he said. "I will go after him."

Oh, and the biggest irony in all of this? At the very end of the article, Mr. Haye who kicked off this whole thing with his legal threats, tells the NY Times reporter over a dish of lamb chops at a different Afghani restaurant: "You know, Afghans don't even like eating fried chicken."

Filed Under: chicken, trademark
Companies: kennedy fried chicken, kentucky fried chicken, kfc