alex roberts

WHAT 🤯

after trimming cuticles she moisturized them, so I know she’s got the necessary equipment on hand

the woman across from me on the green line just took a cuticle trimmer out of her backpack & is now trimming her cuticles

what is happening here is this the mbta manicure express

you can pry my double iced doppio out of my cold* dead etc etc

*be sure to double check: just because they're cold doesn't mean i'm dead

on weds., uspto director squires described uspto as “america’s branding agency" while another speaker at the same event pointed out the rise in people asserting “ownership in their own personal brands.”

& yes, personal brand lawsuits are on the rise:

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

altman says "we would obviously never run ads in the way anthropic depicts them. ...I guess it’s on brand for anthropic doublespeak to...critique theoretical deceptive ads that aren’t real."

are the ads likely to deceive consumers if it's "obvious" chatgpt would never?

OpenAI is hoppin' mad about Anthropic's new Super Bowl TV ads Sam Altman calls AI competitor "dishonest" and "authoritarian" in lengthy post on X.

OpenAI argues the claude superbowl ads are misleading b/c the chatGPT ads "will appear labeled at the bottom...in banners & will not alter the chatbot’s answers"

BUT...the chagpt ads will still be conversation-specific, i.e. prompted by the content of the chat.

arstechnica.com/information-...

pats lost so my temple has to send a box of mike’s cannoli & a big bag of cape cod potato chips to a temple in seattle along with a pic of the clergy holding a sign that says “mazel tov seahawks”

I am frequently surprised at how much some consumers want to police trademark use on behalf of corporations and call out/punish what they deem bad actors

ok nerds, what do we think about pepsi coopting the coke polar bears for its super bowl ad? any trademark rights actually implicated here?

mouthattack says “fans are split between calling it clever marketing & accusing pepsi of crossing an unwritten branding line” 👀 🥤

bet the family group chat spinoff devoted entirely to sports commentary* is popping off tonight

*includes all family members except me and my mom

I made my kids chug water in mexico when I was afraid they’d get dehydrated

race to finish and then put the cup upside down on your head!

when your kid is sick & hasn’t really eaten anything in 22 hours & all your energy is focused on cheering for her so hard like “eat that popsicle!! you can do it! sip of pedialyte, just a quick sip, so yummy, you got this!!” 😬 this cup of blue raspberry pedialyte is my superbowl

ok I haven’t watched the video but it sounds like he said his superbowl snack is just yogurt

mmmm, meat and ferments 😩

on this day last year i was on tv for a hot second as part of @CBSNews' pre-superbowl coverage talking about trademark registrations for THREEPEAT 🏈® 😆

www.facebook.com/watch/?mibex...

I definitely see the appeal of that approach, I just think it ends up overprotecting

but I appreciate the validation that I’m not yelling at a straw man 😉

but is "infringement of personal brand" even a thing?

i argue that it isn't, & acting like it is risks chilling speech, creativity, & competition.

i just posted my draft, "litigating personal brand: intellectual property & the construction of self" on ssrn--comments welcome!

the video of the process of gathering sticks in an aesthetically pleasing forest at dusk; & the vibe embodied in the image of a woman, shot from behind, hair in loose waves w/ subtle highlights, wearing white cowboy boots & holding the bundle of sticks triumphantly over her head.

if property is a bundle of sticks, the supposed bundle that is personal brand includes the sticks along with any leaves, berries, & pinecones; the arrangement of the sticks; the photos of the sticks; the captions of the photos of the sticks...

once creators invest time, resources, & energy into developing & monetizing their personal brand, they seem to start to view it as a commodity—something in which they own exclusive rights.

an amazon influencer sued another influencer for copying her vibe; a designer accused her employer of stealing her name to sell bridal couture; a musical group is battling a toy company in court over dolls that resemble them...

on weds., uspto director squires described uspto as “america’s branding agency" while another speaker at the same event pointed out the rise in people asserting “ownership in their own personal brands.”

& yes, personal brand lawsuits are on the rise:

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

we got about 2 and very little has melted. snowed lightly all day today but sounds like the heavy stuff is coming around 3am

NEW SNOWFALL MAP: Parts of Mass. could see 8 inches on Saturday The northeast is prepping for snow on Saturday, with bitter arctic cold to follow by Sunday morning.

sorry but we don’t have any room for more snow? we are already full up on snow idk how this is even going to work

www.nbcboston.com/news/local/s...

my 8 y/o and I are wearing matching clueless pajamas that say “total betty” & “ugh, as if” & “that was way harsh” & are decorated with flip phones & feather pens & cassette tapes

I think we will probably stay in them all weekend

& the private label licensing question in play in lululemon/costco & maybe smucker/TJ--whether consumers expect products sold under the KIRKLAND or TRADER JOE'S brand might still be made by the national brand--will get some attention too.

the false advertising cases will need litigants to make sense of questions around what consumers understand by the term "dupe" in different contexts & how different is so different that the term itself becomes misleading, consistent w/ case law on other forms of comparative ads

functionality doctrine has a major role to play here as brands try to assert color combos & basic packaging concepts (as w/ recent suits by sol de janeiro, supergoop, etc.)

takeaways: dupe culture isn't going anywhere, & litigation will help determine the contours of how close dupe products can come to originals w/o infringing

we may see an increase in trade dress suits & attempts to register product design & packaging TD, & design patents too