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A Brooklyn Artist Trademarked The 'Pi' Symbol, And People Are Furious

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  A Brooklyn Artist Trademarked The 'Pi' Symbol, And People Are Furious Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2014-06-04 01:11 +0000
    Re: A Brooklyn Artist Trademarked The 'Pi' Symbol, And People Are Furious David Hume <David.Hume@example.com> - 2014-06-04 09:57 +0100
      Re: A Brooklyn Artist Trademarked The 'Pi' Symbol, And People Are Furious Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2014-06-04 11:00 +0100
      Re: A Brooklyn Artist Trademarked The 'Pi' Symbol, And People Are Furious Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2014-06-04 10:02 +0000
    Re: A Brooklyn Artist Trademarked The 'Pi' Symbol, And People Are Furious Whiskers <catwheezel@operamail.com> - 2014-06-04 14:05 +0100

#3505 — A Brooklyn Artist Trademarked The 'Pi' Symbol, And People Are Furious

http://www.businessinsider.com/someone-managed-to-copyright-pi-2014-6#ixzz33cigyCrG

  "Turns out you can't have your "pi," and eat it too."

  "In January 2014, a Brooklyn artist named Paul Ingrisano trademarked
  the 3,000-year old mathematical symbol "\u03c0" followed by a period,
  and is actively protecting his mark, Wired's Kevin Poulsen reports."

  "Ingrisano, who uses the design on shirts he sells through his
  company, PI Productions Corp., reportedly discovered that the custom
  t-shirt printing site Zazzle was selling merchandise featuring the pi
  symbol, and had an attorney send a cease-and-desist letter to the
  site (see below)." ...

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#3509

Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:

>   "In January 2014, a Brooklyn artist named Paul Ingrisano trademarked
>   the 3,000-year old mathematical symbol "\u03c0" followed by a period,
>   and is actively protecting his mark, Wired's Kevin Poulsen reports."
>


But the PI symbol is the greek letter pi. How can you trademark a
letter?

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#3512

David Hume <David.Hume@example.com> writes:

> Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:
>
>>   "In January 2014, a Brooklyn artist named Paul Ingrisano trademarked
>>   the 3,000-year old mathematical symbol "\u03c0" followed by a period,
>>   and is actively protecting his mark, Wired's Kevin Poulsen reports."
>
> But the PI symbol is the greek letter pi. How can you trademark a
> letter?

What's been trademarked in the two-symbol combination "pi.".  I don't
know much trademark law, but I suspect the form of display is
significant (font and layout and so on).  I am sure that GE, BT and BP
have trademarked at least some forms of these pairs.

The particular point in this case (no pun intended) is that the
trademark owner claim that pi without the dot is so similar that it can
be confused with his.  I wonder if adding such a tiny symbol as a dot
was done with this in mind.

-- 
Ben.

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#3513

David Hume <David.Hume@example.com> wrote:
> Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:

> >   "In January 2014, a Brooklyn artist named Paul Ingrisano
> >   trademarked the 3,000-year old mathematical symbol "\u03c0"
> >   followed by a period, and is actively protecting his mark,
> >   Wired's Kevin Poulsen reports."

> But the PI symbol is the greek letter pi. How can you trademark a
> letter?

My thought as well.  The snippet I quoted does say pi followed by a
period (pi.), but that seems very flimsy.  And the rest of the article
seems to indicate that while the trademark may have been for pi. that
the trademark owner is attempting to trademark-troll others into not
using just pi rather than pi. as in the trademark.

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#3515

On 2014-06-04, Rich <rich@example.invalid> wrote:
> http://www.businessinsider.com/someone-managed-to-copyright-pi-2014-6#ixzz33cigyCrG
>
>   "Turns out you can't have your "pi," and eat it too."
>
>   "In January 2014, a Brooklyn artist named Paul Ingrisano trademarked
>   the 3,000-year old mathematical symbol "\u03c0" followed by a period,
>   and is actively protecting his mark, Wired's Kevin Poulsen reports."
>
>   "Ingrisano, who uses the design on shirts he sells through his
>   company, PI Productions Corp., reportedly discovered that the custom
>   t-shirt printing site Zazzle was selling merchandise featuring the pi
>   symbol, and had an attorney send a cease-and-desist letter to the
>   site (see below)." ...

Very loose description of a trademark.  At most, he seems to have
claimed sole use of that precise shape of the letter pi and that precise
shape and relative size and position of dot, all in that particular
colour (presumably whatever colour the application was presented in,
which colour may belong to someone else already of course).  The actual
size may also be ruled to be specified by that application.   In any
case, he restricts himself to using it on specific sorts of garment
described as both 'athletic apparel' and 'class 25'.  So any garment
that isn't 'athletic apparel' isn't covered anyway.  Just say you're
selling 'fashion' or 'party' or 'outdoor' stuff, or that it isn't
'apparel' at all ...

It's curious that he describes it as a 'mathematical symbol', as that
clearly isn't what he's using it for.

Caveat: I am not a lawyer!

-- 
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
--  Whiskers 
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

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