#Wal-Mart: Rolling Back Your Public Domain
Via /.: [tag]Wal-Mart[/tag] Trying to [tag]Trademark[/tag] the [tag]Smiley Face[/tag]:
Until now the smiley face had been considered in the public domain in the US, and therefore free for anyone to use. Wal-Mart spokesman John Smiley told the Los Angeles Times that it had not moved to register the trademark until Mr Loufrani had threatened to do so.
Wow! Does them and [tag]Disney[/tag] seem cut out of the same cloth, no? Who needs creative writing or marketing when you can just rip-off the public domain for all your biggest successes? I’d say I sniffed a merger if it weren’t for their conflicting values.
(Sorry for the blatant rip-off of the Slashdot plug. My internet connection is super flaky at the moment and I haven’t got all day to load some text…)
