Don’t know what to make of this.  NameProtect offers trademark policing and monitoring services.  I assume that in order to monitor usage of a trademark on the Internet, it must employ some type of spidering software (or ‘bot).  Little Green Footballs is a blog that writes on political issues.  It keeps track of ‘bots and in fact publishes an evil robot list.  It claims that it “caught” a NameProtect bot in a “bot trap.”  The post contains an interesting comment thread with many suspicious comments as to what the intruder was doing nosing around. 

Bot Traps were originally intended to defeat spammers and email scrapers.  I suppose they could be used against search engine and trademark monitoring bots as well, making both less effective.  I wonder if it is possible to build an “invisible web site,” which would be of interest to a variety of unsavory groups, including trademark counterfeiters.

Info on Isaac Asimov (author of I Robot and other robot novels) here.

This NY Times article (registration required) discusses the possible effect of a war on American brands.  The article also announces the debut of the McARABIA, a new sandwich from McDonalds consisting of chicken and salad in a bread pocket.  Last week, someone attempted to firebomb a McDonalds in Saudi Arabia.  No word on whether McDonalds will serve QUIBLA COLA.  Googling McFALAFEL tells the story of a previous not so successful foray into this area.

As a new revenue source, you might want to offer bloggers libel and advertising injury insurance. 

I was mulling the ramifications of the scraping decision in Texas this week as I was standing in my driveway removing my home-delivered NY Times from its blue plastic wrapper, when the thought occurred to me: “Jeez, when is this winter going to end?”  Also: if the NY Times printed a shrink-wrap license on this blue pastic bag invoking provisions regarding what I could do with the unprotectable facts in this paper, would a Texas (or some other) court enforce them?  Does it have to be a shrink-wrap, can the Times merely print a “Browse Wrap” on its front page? Should a click wrap or browse wrap on a website treated differently than the theoretical one on  a front page of a newspaper?  Should the Times begin selling even newsstand copies in plastic bags with terms and conditions printed on them?

TechLawAdviser gives his answer here.  Others?

Home delivery of the Times here.

Maybe we need something to take our minds off impending war but the fake Puma ad story is taking on a life of its own.  Instapundit implies that Bill O’Reilly thinks the ads are real (CORRECTION: Mr. O’Reilly was really talking about PONY and it’s use of a porn star for its ads.  I guess PONY and PUMA are confusingly similar).  MemeFirst reports that it was called by Puma and asked to take them down.  Salon was asked to remove the ads on the Reverse Cowgirl’s Blog  (which also reprints some reader comments from Adland).  Some people are speculating that Puma did create the ads in order to deny them.  Some people are speculating that Adidas created the ads.  I suspect either Walt “Clyde Puma” Frazier’s involvement or that of the Dancing Baby.

As to the threats that are being bandied about to those folks reproducing the ad on their sites, let’s go over some (U.S.) ground rules.  If you’re not using the trademark in commerce, you’re not infringing and you’re not diluting.  If you re-publish a false statement with the indication that it is false (and in fact publish it because its falsity is news), then you are not commiting libel or trade disparagement.  Now, if you’re the person who created the ad, and then disseminated it indicating that it was an authentic Puma ad, that’s a different analysis.

J.K. Rowling and AOLTW are moving in Dutch court to enjoin publication of “The Magic Double Bass, a book featuring a girl named Tanya Grotter, an orphan with magical powers and a strange mark on her face.”  She also flies on the cover of her book and her name is written in a letters with sharp angles.  The Googlism of Tanya Grotter says that she is not a copy of Harry Potter so that’s that.

The Illinois High School Association began a basketball tournament in 1908.  By the 1930’s, it was referring to it as March Madness.  By the 70’s, it had become an official name for the tournament.  It’s unclear (to me) when the NCAA (and Brent Musberger) began referring to its tournament as March Madness but it did begin licensing the mark around 1973.  IHSA sued but failed to enjoin the NCAA use.  IHSA v. GTE VantF.3d 244 (7th Cir/99/1996).  Some settlement ensued and the marks appear to be pooled in an entity controlled by both the NCAA and the IHSA, and both parties use the mark (the IHSA differentiates its usage somewhat by using the term “AMERICA’S ORIGINAL MARCH MADNESS”).  IHSA MARCH MADNESS merchandise is available here and NCAA March Madness merchandise is here.

Neither side claims exclusive rights to the concept of the office pool.

UPDATE:  Patrick Jones at the must-read UDRPLaw.net points out March Madness Assn v. Netfire, 162 F. Supp.2d 560 (ND Tex 2001) for more on the history of the ownership of the MARCH MADNESS mark.

Kottke.org claims that french fries were developed in Belgium, apparently a controversial assertion according to this history of french fries.