"Paul Ingrisano, a pirate living in Brooklyn New York, filed a trademark under "Pi Productions" for a logo which consists of this freely available version of the pi symbol from the Wikimedia website combined with a period (full stop). The conditions of the trademark specifically state that the trademark includes a period.
The trademark was granted in January 2014 and Ingrisano has recently made trademark infringement claims against a massive range of pi-related designs on print-on-demand websites including Zazzle and Cafepress. Surprisingly, Zazzle accepted his claim and removed thousands of clothing products using this design, emailing designers that their work was infringing Pi Productions' intellectual property - even designs not using a full stop."
Indeed, Zazzle states that:
"Recently, [they] were contacted directly by the legal representatives for Pi Production Corp. with regards to the trademark for the mathematical symbol of “Pi” on clothing items. The United States Patent and Trademark Office registration number for this trademark is 4473631, which can be found along with more information about the mark via a trademark search by registration number on the USPTO’s official website http://www.uspto.gov. As a result, Zazzle removed apparel designs containing the symbol while we evaluate the complaint."
The trademark is quite real, and applies to 'athletic apparel, namely, shirts, pants, jackets, footwear, hats and caps, athletic uniforms'. As blogger Jez Kemp rightly notes, there are huge implications for designers and individuals across the planet. If Zazzle wash their hands and accept one man's claim to own the rights to all use of an ancient Greek letter and generic mathematical symbol on clothing, it sets a precedent for other websites and companies to do the same.
That's why I no longer use Zazzle. They removed a clear Fair Use parody design from my shop because of a claim by Summit Entertainment. They don't have the backs of their artists, even in cases where the design is obviously innocent.
ReplyDeleteOn a related note, I know someone who had to change their company name because someone else trademarked a common word in the English language in all-caps.