Zazzle.com Thinks Depictions of Pi Are Protected Intellectual Property

Byteme writes: "A number of Zazzle.com users have had their art and products removed from the site after a man named Paul Ingrisano was granted a trademark for 'Pi Productions' using a logo that consists of this freely available version of the pi symbol from the Wikimedia website combined with a period. He made infringement claims against several websites, and Zazzle took down many clothing products that featured designs using the pi symbol. When users called them on it, they locked a public forum thread and said they're evaluating Ingrisano's complaint."

Anyone notice...

[barlevg]

his initials, Paul Ingrisano

Re:How would it infringe?

[Luthair]

Zazzle is probably erring on the side of not getting sued.

Re:Prior Art Exists.

[Anonymous Coward]

God invented Pi. don't get his lawyers into this...

God has no lawyers. They're all in Hell.

Zazzle.com

[cstacy]

Zazzle.com. A web site that I've never heard of before, but won't ever be visiting...

Re:Almost as retarded as patenting 2 primes !

[gstoddart]

Too bad the general public is too apathetic to see how completely retarded patenting a common mathematical symbol

It's also too bad the general public is unaware of the difference between a trademark and a patent. ;-)

Re:Free market strikes again...

[jythie]

Well, beyond being, as you say, crazing fucking idiots, often it is the case that the people who want revolution are really seeking disproportionate power of their own, often with even less of the population behind them then the current government. Just look at the US, most of the pro-revolution crowd makes up fairly small groups who are angry at having to share power with others who they view as 'not real americans'.

Zazzle's been bad in the past

[Dixie_Flatline]

I'm friends with some artists, and the problem with Zazzle (and many other sites like them) is that actually stolen content gets submitted all the time, and they probably got sick of getting 1000 emails from an artist and all of that artist's fans for someone effectively stealing a design and submitting it as their own.

This guy doesn't have a leg to stand on, but it doesn't mean that nobody ever has a reason to complain. The reality is that the internet is a place where people try and pass things off as their own constantly. That's bad enough, but when someone starts making money off of your art--your original, actual art--it becomes really damaging to you. People start thinking YOUR design is the fake, even though it's the original. It sucks.

So yeah, this is lame and bit lazy, but not immediately responding to an infringement notice is also lame and lazy.

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[account_deleted]

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