Steve Dirickson writes:

>In the decision, Judge Scalia said that the design of the clothes,
>"one-piece seersucker outfits decorated with appliques of hearts,
>flowers, fruits, and the like," was not inherently distinctive as to
>the source of the clothing. I.e., seeing clothes with that design does
>not cause a person to immediately think "Aha, clothing from the Samara
>company."

One wonders why the company didn't allege copyright infringement instead
of using a trade dress approach.

On a related off-topic topic, HPR's _Science Friday_ program today had a
one-hour segment on patents, with a panel that included Todd Dickinson,
the current Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks. Software patents took
up much of the hour, with specific discussions on the patents granted to
Amazon for one-click ordering and to the guy who thought he invented date
windowing.

_Science Friday_ has RealAudio archives, typically posted the Monday
after the show. Their web site is <http://www.sciencefriday.com>.

-- Bruce


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