Gavin Ashton was an IT security guy working at Maersk at the time of it was hit hard by the NotPetya ransomware. Now he’s written an article about his experiences, and shares advice for others.
This very morning, I paid $ 5 for a breakfast burrito at a place near where I work. To be frank, I regret to say that it was ultimately disappointing. How in the world do you construct a steak breakfast burrito that lacks salt? The great news for me is that there are roughly a gazillion places around me that also advertise breakfast burritos, so I currently have other places to get them. The bad news, however, is that someone out there is taking a run at trademarking “breakfast burrito”, so that might not be the case in the future.
Recently, the Twitter account for Timberlake Law—a North Carolina based specialist in trademarks and copyrights—posted a link to the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s website for an application to trademark the term “Breakfast Burrito.”
Though most people will inherently sense that this seems ridiculous, Timberlake does a good job of spelling out the reason: “While it’s true that the drawing and specimen should match, the mark and the goods shouldn’t,” the tweet explains. To put it another way, the application seeks to trademark the phrase “Breakfast Burrito,” but in the section where the applicant explains what the trademark is for, the answer is “Breakfast burritos; Burritos.” Basically, if the only way you can describe what you’re trying to trademark is by using the same phrase as the trademark, then there’s a solid chance that the phrase is common enough that it can’t be trademarked in the first place. It doesn’t take much legalese to understand that.
Put more simply: a trademark can’t be for the generic name of a product or service. This should be obvious to all, as the point of trademark law is absolutely not to narrowly limit the choices consumers have for a given product or service. Still, this concept seems to elude some people.
The whole thing should remind you of the whole “Taco Tuesday” fiasco that is continuing to date, where Taco John’s somehow got a trademark for a phrase that describes serving people tacos on Tuesdays. In fact, that analogous trademark issue is useful as a marker for how the Trademark Office is complicit in fostering an environment in which people think they can trademark something like “breakfast burrito.”
As to who is actually trying to do so in this case, it’s something of a mystery.
So who exactly wants the rights to eggs wrapped in a tortilla in the morning? Eater attempted to get to the bottom of this application and, unsurprisingly, didn’t get very far. The site “reached out to the person listed on the application,” whose address “matches that of a personal injury law firm in LA,” but “did not hear back on requests for comment made over email and the phone by press time.”
So what’s this all amount to? Likely very little. Anyone with a few hundred bucks can attempt to trademark anything. Receiving a trademark and then protecting it is far more difficult, and based on the assessment of Timberlake and findings of Eater, this attempt to register “Breakfast Burrito” appears to be a random shot in the dark.
A shot that should, and likely will, fail. Still, we have a Taco Tuesday trademark, so how much of a stretch is it to see the USPTO rubberstamping one for “breakfast burrito” as well?
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Techdirt.
Here’s what we’re strip-searching elementary school students for these days: the existence of feces on a school bathroom floor. (h/t Scott Greenfield)
In a lawsuit, a family claims an Edina elementary school strip-searched their son after they suspected him of having an accident in the bathroom.
Attorneys say the search was ultimately traumatic for the boy who has suffered mental and emotional distress.
“This situation is certainly bizarre; it’s unusual and perhaps unique,” said attorney Marshall Tanick, who represents the young boy and his mother.
Having discovered diarrhea on the bathroom floor, school administrators decided to do something no school administrator should do: they pulled the 8-year-old child (“W.B.” in the lawsuit) into the office, stripped him down, and “searched his naked rectal area” for evidence of floor-pooping.
That this was an elementary school makes this an even more egregious violation of the then-second grader’s body. Sometimes accidents happen. Looking for “suspects” is a stupid response to the inevitable. Deciding an 8-year-old should be strip-searched and examined in an attempt to link him to the discovery of feces on a bathroom floor is insane.
Hence the lawsuit [PDF]. The lawsuit alleges this search was performed without notifying W.B.’s parents and in direct contradiction of school policies, which only allow such extreme measures to be taken in situations involving “imminent danger” or an “emergency health situation.” Obviously, nothing here qualifies as either of those, no matter how broadly you choose to interpret those terms.
The lawsuit also alleges school policy requires parental notification if such a search is going to occur. That didn’t happen here. On top of that, the school has refused to turn over a copy of the incident report to the parents or their legal rep.
The lawsuit calls this what it is: assault. That’s one of the six violations alleged in the lawsuit, along with battery, intentional infliction of mental and emotional distress, invasion of privacy, and the violation of Minnesota’s Data Practices Act, which is tied to the school’s ongoing refusal to part with its incident report.
The statement from the school district is understandably vague, considering it’s being sued and the victim is a minor. But it’s still going on the defensive, attempting to portray the strip search and rectal examination of an 8-year-old student as something everyone would see as reasonable if only they had all the details.
District staff acted to support this student, and it is unfortunate that this matter has progressed to this point based on significant misunderstandings of the District’s actions. District staff at all times has the best interests of its students as their primary focus and goal, and the District remains committed to providing the best possible education and environment for its students.
It’s hard to misconstrue being ordered to remove your pants so school staff can check your rectal area, but here we are, waiting for that very assertion to be litigated. While it’s likely true most of the district staff do have the “best interests of their students” in mind “at all times,” there will always be those who think disproportionate responses are the best responses. Some accidents just need to be punished, and as harshly as possible. It’s happened far too many times for it to be unimaginable, even if the Edina School District would prefer us to believe otherwise.
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Techdirt.
Don’t panic, but a bug has been found in FaceTime that could allow someone to spy on your conversation – and even see through your iPhone’s front-facing camera – before you answer an incoming call.