An L.A. Times editorial says:
So Donald Trump wants to patent the expression “You’re fired.” . . . Maybe he’s serious about the trademark so he can sell “You’re Fired!” T-shirts and gambling machines; of course, not having such a patent wouldn’t stop him either.
Maybe, just maybe (we’re only suggesting here) the patent filing and word of it happening to slip out somehow late one recent week had something to do with “you’re fired” being the unregistered trademark phrase of Trump’s popular Thursday NBC television show, whose name escapes us at the moment. Trump couldn’t buy — well, maybe he could — the publicity generated by such a dubious patent filing. . . .
It was no gamble to predict that a pioneer of patent patent publicity ploys would be what’s-his-name on that what’s-it-called NBC show.
A trademark is not a patent. Trademark protection is available for very different things, and provides a very different sort of protection than patent law. This doesn’t affect the substance of the editorial, and only slightly affects its tone (since most readers probably also don’t distinguish trademarks and patents, they’re not going to see “patent” as carrying any different connotation from “trademark”). But it would be nice if newspapers were a bit more accurate in such matters. Thanks to intellectual property lawyer (and my former boss) Bruce Wessel for the pointer.
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