Books Due!

Dear Library Patrons,

Please return your library books prior to leaving for the summer. And, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us during the summer for any of your research needs! We hope you have a great summer!

From your friends at the library

I know I’m Always Confused by how Kale and “Chikin” are “to some Extent Actually Identical.” Are You?

You’ve probably seen the “eat more kale” bumper stickers. Out of curiosity, when you saw the bumper sticker did you think of Chick-Fil-A? According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office there is potential for consumers to confuse “Eat More Kale” and Chick-fil-A’s slogan, “Eat Mor Chikin.” Because of the potential for “confusion,” the application to trademark “Eat More Kale” has been refused.

The trademark attorney’s analysis foresees potential confusion between the two trademarks. The attorney disputes the applicant’s assertion of the differences between kale and chicken; in fact she says “the similarities between the marks are more important than the differences.” The only similarities I see, is that these are both food items. She goes on to say “the marks urge action in the same way, only as to different substances and both of them are commonly consumed types of food.” Apparently, food is enough to be similar? In my mind the two types of food are very different and would likely be consumed in different environments, by people with varying health consciousness.

For a little more clarity on the issue of similarity, I turned to the trusty old Black’s Law Dictionary. Similarity is defined as follows, “The resemblance of one trademark or copyrighted work to another. How closely a trademark must resemble another to amount to infringement depends on the nature of the product and how much care the typical buyer would expect to take in making the selection in that particular market…”

The definition didn’t help: again, I am having a hard time understanding when these two foods or markets would be in competition.

The attorney continues this line of reasoning, eventually saying that “the goods at issues are to some extent actually identical.” Ok, now my confusion has been raised to another level. I thought identical means exactly the same, so how could items be “to some extent” actually identical?

Read the complete US Patent and Trademark office, official letter,  here.

Perhaps because I am not a trained lawyer, I am having a hard time understanding how kale and “chikin” and their various mark are nearly identical. Overall, I find this decision rather outrageous. I think most people can differentiate between the two products, and their respective marks. If you can’t, please let me know.

heidi

A Poem from National Library Week: Ad faciendium (ad fay-shee-en-dam): To do, to make

Last week was National Library Week. To celebrate, we asked patrons to choose any book, go to page 43, and write down the text from line 13. A few people participated, and below is the “poem” or “story” that resulted from line 13.

Ad faciendium (ad fay-shee-en-dam): To do, to make

Where will they go?
Charging lions have been known to cover a hundred yards
They cannot live here. So I’m sending them off
of glacial ice.
From the air, the only visual parts of her camp are the tents and the drill
kind of labor would not be toil?
Carr affirmed that mechanics
done something so nice or good that it has emotionally touched
the cheekbones later discovered there by a team of gay excavators are courtesy of regional customs.
A teenager who wears well-pressed jeans to unwell may look present
EU policy’ effect,
affecting the role and room for the activity of such organizations
Remain about the use of cruelty and negative reinforcement through force to train

Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky like a patient etherized upon a table