It made me giggle too.

Sigh...new Massive Attack album on Monday, new Buffy on Tuesday, can next week get any better?

Sigh...new Massive Attack album on Monday,

Why am I so poor?

It doesn't come out here until the 11th, Brenda, maybe you can scare up some cash before then.

A new BP, with the new logo, opened a few blocks from my house! It's all shiny and new and really lights up the houses of the poor schmucks nearby.

PS This is in New York City.

And oh yeah, Zoe, my mom's cousins, six McDonald boys, report no burger jokes. We can tell a big company from a smiling Scottish-American guy.

Hmm - don't think you need to be insulted . I answered your point as I understood it. I quoted you directly, then made what I though was a reduction to absurdity of something that strikes as absurd in the law. I'm not disputing you on what the law is; I'm arguing that the law on this issue is aburd.

I still think there is a ditinction here. From what you are saying Owen/Corning actually dyes their insulation pink. (If I'm wrong that is not an attempt to insult you. It is my actual understanding, easily corrected.) BP does not actually dye their oil or even the barrels it comes in green and yellow. It is the color of their logo.

It seems to me (and again I'm talking about why I disagree with a legal principle; I'm not disputing your understanding of what the principle is) that if the only distinctive thing about a trademark (in the sense of a logo, not something you use to make your actual product look different) is the use of a very common two colors - then you are inviting unintentional infringement.

I am sorry my last post offended you. I hope this one does not.

Zoe, this thread was started as a haven for those without the latest episodes, back in the dark ages when there was only one Buffista thread on WX.

Min ... the origins of this thread go back to Table Talk. It used the word "Unamerican" back then and should always have that word somewhere in the title.

To be blunt, if someone has a problem with the word, they should go elsewhere.

Just to tie this back into the thread topic, in 1906 the movie The Story of the Kelly Gang opened in Melbourne. This was perhaps the first narrative film of any significant length in the world.

billytea ... it's my understanding that the first "narrative film of any significant length" pre-dates that by around 10 years. Moreover, it was in "colour" no less. The Salvation Army in Australia created a movie about the bible some time in the late 1890s.

But the McDonald's restaurant was started by people named McDonald. They didn't just grab the name; it was theirs.

This is only half-true. The brothers (name escapes me) who started what we know as "McDonald's" bought the hamburger joint from the original owners. They kept the name and started expanding the number of "restaurants" using the moniker.

Jimi, it was Ray Kroc.

The brothers (name escapes me) who started what we know as "McDonald's" bought the hamburger joint from the original owners. They kept the name and started expanding the number of "restaurants" using the moniker.

I'm pretty sure it's the other way around. The McDonald brothers started it, then Ray Kroc expanded it. ( [link] )

Little known fact I read in LA times back when I lived in LA. Somewhere in a small town, there is a hamburger joint name McDonalds that has nothing to do witht the chain. Since it started before the chain, there is nothing the chain can do about it. Occasionally, the legal department of the corporate giant does send a letter to remind them they have no right to open a second resteraunt with that name. The non-chain McDonalds Hamburger joint owners laugh because they have no intention of expanding, in any case.

Typo, if you didn't mean to joke about the logic, then I'm not insulted-- but that is the law. Limiting a mark to one or two things makes it more protectable than trying to save for yourself six or seven marking things.

Think of it this way: what is a can of soda with a red and white outside? It's a Coke. The soda is not red & white. The colors don't suggest soda the same way green and yellow suggests lemon-lime. If you saw another can of soda with a red & white exterior, would you assume it was anything other than a Coke? This is all by way of saying color, by itself, can be distinctive.