Techdirt. Stories about "mars" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories about "mars"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Fri, 25 Jan 2013 17:00:00 PST DailyDirt: Promotional Space Food Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101116/10540211888/dailydirt-promotional-space-food.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101116/10540211888/dailydirt-promotional-space-food.shtml
  • Pizza Hut delivered the first pizza to the International Space Station in 2001, which Russian cosmonaut Yuri Usachov ate as a $1 million promotional stunt. Salami instead of pepperoni was used as a topping, and extra salt and spices were added to adjust for the deadened taste buds of a long-term space inhabitant. [url]
  • Commemorative M&Ms celebrated SpaceShipOne's successful sub-orbital flight and its Ansari X Prize win. M&Ms were also used on a test flight to demonstrate weightlessness to spectators watching a remote video stream. [url]
  • M&Ms have been taken aboard numerous NASA missions for about 30 years. However, NASA has generally been coy about calling the space-worthy candies M&Ms. [url]
  • Specially-designed cans of Coke and Pepsi have been on a space shuttle mission during the Cola Wars. The beverages weren't that refreshing for astronauts due to a lack of refrigeration and messiness. [url]
    • If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

    Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
    ]]>     urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20101116/10540211888     Thu, 2 Dec 2010 02:09:20 PST More Extremely Silly Trademark Lawsuits: Mars vs. Hershey Over Totally Different Looking Wrappers Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101201/00014612071/more-extremely-silly-trademark-lawsuits-mars-vs-hershey-over-totally-different-looking-wrappers.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101201/00014612071/more-extremely-silly-trademark-lawsuits-mars-vs-hershey-over-totally-different-looking-wrappers.shtml ton of people have been submitting variations on this story of how candy company Hershey is suing candy company Mars, claiming that Mars' new Dove brand of chocolate and peanut butter candies has packaging that looks too much like Hershey's Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Most of the stories I saw didn't have any actual images to show, but the link here has the following two images:
    And, similar to the recent legal spat we covered concerning beer cans, the wrappers look like they have two totally different designs. Given both of these cases happened in such close proximity, it does make you wonder if consumer goods companies are getting much more aggressive in trying to claim any package that has some incredibly superficial similarities now represents trademark infringement.

    Update: As pointed out in the comments, Hershey's has a couple of newer packages that do appear a bit more similar, but still pretty different:


    Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
    ]]>     you-put-your-chocolate-in-my-trademark-lawyer http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20101201/00014612071     Thu, 23 Sep 2010 05:42:04 PDT Cocoa Genome Released... But Is It Really In The Public Domain? Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100919/00444911066/cocoa-genome-released-but-is-it-really-in-the-public-domain.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100919/00444911066/cocoa-genome-released-but-is-it-really-in-the-public-domain.shtml Cacao Genome Database. Sounded interesting, but it was a busy week, and I wasn't able to spend much time digging into it. I was intrigued, however, by the claim in the press release that the team had "released the preliminary findings of their breakthrough cacao genome sequence and made it available in the public domain". It's so rare to hear of some big companies doing research and release it into the public domain, that it, alone, seemed newsworthy, and something I wanted to explore.

    Thankfully, before I even got the chance to, I saw Glyn Moody point me to Glen Newton's analysis of the claims of public domain and open access for the data, only to discover it's not true. While they are making the data available, it's hardly public domain. You have to agree to a license that has some serious restrictions in it (and some contradictions). For example, it lists out the ways you can use it -- and leaves out commercial use. Real public domain doesn't care (and doesn't require a license).

    Then there's this:
    The User shall not transfer the information referred to in this agreement, or any copy of them, to a third party without obtaining written authorization from the Providers which will only be provided subject to the third party user entering into this same IAA.
    I'm kind of wondering if this is just boilerplate that the lawyers threw into this not understanding what public domain means. But it seems pretty silly to (a) create a license for supposedly public domain data which (b) doesn't allow you to tell anyone about what's in the license!

    There is a nice bit in the "license" where it says you can't use the data in a patent application, but one would hope that the data being in the public domain would exclude it from being used in a limited fashion elsewhere anyway (sans license agreement). Separately, someone in the comments notes that the original license agreement said that if you used the data, you couldn't publish any articles about your findings until some period in the future -- but that clause was later removed (though, it's unclear if those who signed in prior to the removal still need to live by that).

    However, I do have a pretty serious question: is this data in the public domain? Last year, we pointed out how difficult it is to put something into the public domain. Here, we have a case where Mars, the main company behind the research, has put out a press release, which clearly states:
    Today, Mars, Incorporated, the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS), and IBM released the preliminary findings of their breakthrough cacao genome sequence and made it available in the public domain.
    Thus, one could easily read that and believe these findings are public domain. But, then, when you go to the actual site, it claims all sorts of license restrictions. So, if someone goes and copies all the data and puts it on their own site, is that legal? It certainly looks like the company put the info into the public domain via the press release, and once something is in the public domain, you can't reverse that (well, unless you're the 10th Circuit appeals court). So, it certainly looks like someone could make the argument that the license Mars is trying to put on this data is meaningless. The company has already declared it in the public domain, and thus, no license applies. But, here's where the lack of any clear rules for how you officially make something public domain come into play. Would Mars claim that the press release "misrepresented" the company's position?

    I don't mean to come down too hard on Mars. It's actually quite nice that a company would do such research and try to make it "open" and try to prevent it from being locked up in patents. I really do commend such actions, and don't wish to negate that point. But, I think the public domain is a really important thing, and if a company wants to put content into the public domain, they should be clear about what's really in the public domain.

    Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
    ]]>     the-public-domain-has-no-restrictions http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100919/00444911066     Fri, 15 Feb 2008 16:01:22 PST The Naked Cowboy Has A Trademark And A Lawyer... And He's Not Afraid To Use Either Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080215/110706265.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080215/110706265.shtml Eric writes in to let us know of a rather odd trademark infringement lawsuit going down in New York. It appears that "The Naked Cowboy," a Times Square institution (he's basically a guy who plays a guitar in Times Square in a cowboy hat and underwear) not only has a trademark on the concept, but he's suing the Mars Company for a video billboard it put up in Times Square (of course) showing animated M&Ms prancing around in cowboy hats and underwear in a virtual Times Square. As the article above reports, the guy may actually have a case of trademark infringement under current laws, though $6 million seems a bit excessive no matter how sure the cowboy (real name: Robert Burck) is of his chances. The real question, though, is whether or not this makes any real sense. The purpose of trademark law is to prevent consumer confusion. It's to prevent Bob's Cola from labeling its bottles as Coca Cola and getting people to buy something other than what they think they're buying. Is that the case here? Will M&Ms buyers be confused? I doubt it, even when we apply the famous "moron in a hurry" test. It's certainly difficult to see how the ad takes anything away from Burck himself -- though, I imagine the lawsuit should only serve to draw more attention to him, which is likely the point, whether or not he scores $6 million out of Mars.

    Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
    ]]>     our-wonderful-society http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080215/110706265