[thelist] protecting self from crazy patents

[Ray Hill]

> Does anybody else here worry about potential liability
> for patent infringement? IE, Amazon's One-Click, the gif
> patent, eBay's pending patent on thumbnail galleries

Like Shane says, it's getting to the point of absurdity, so I don't worry about it too much.  As a humorous aside, though, Despair.com (who make the hilarious DEmotivators) has recently trademarked the  :-(  symbol (which they use as a logo), and plans to sue millions for using it in their daily emails.

Ok, the plans to sue millions is just a part of their satirical press release, but they *did* manage to get a trademark on it, and are more than willing to use that fact to mercilessly make fun of Amazon's one-click patent in their press release:

  Despair, Inc. Secures Official Trademark for ":-(", 
  Announces Plans to Sue Millions for Trademark Infringement
  http://www.despair.com/demotivators/frownonthis.html


Perspecive, folks.  The corporate legal types may not have much of it these days, but the rest of us need to keep ours.  :)


--ray

PS: I infringed on a trademark *twice* to write this email; you'd better appreciate it!