One of the biggest pudding manufacturers in Germany tried to sue a discount store for copying their product design on their store brand pudding. Have  alook:

The pudding manufacturer (image right) tried to have the store brand (image left) taken off the market because of copyright infringement of their design (specifically the cow!!!).

Our (meanwhile) trained eyes clearly see no resemblance between the two designs, well other than using a cow, but this shows to what lengths some companies go to push a competitor out of the market.

And we thought some people here are crazy for complaining about having their concepts "stolen" (finger faces etc.). Anyway, just for the giggles.

German: http://www.stern.de/wirtschaft/news/flecki-vs-paula-aldi-gewinnt-puddingstreit-gegen-dr-oetker-1863634.html
English: http://www.thelocal.de/society/20120724-43941.html

That's not copycat. But there's a lot of copycats in microstock, down to the sligthest detail.

And precisely why I enjoy the SS "Most Popular" feature, not only showing most sales. The only people who care about most popular are people obsessing about their own photos, (I'll never understand why people search their own photos, over and over again?) and they aren't buyers, and the copy cats, who want to see what to copy next. If a buyer looks and wants to avoid using the same "most popular" as everyone already used... not being first is also an advantage.

I think the argument in court for the pudding company isn't the specific design of the cow, but Aldi is using a cow wearing sun glasses. (I don't even see the sunglasses on the plaintiff's cow?) Doesn't Elsie Borden have a say in this?  Nice that the German courts have some sense and threw it out, unlike someone granting the computer companies designs on the square or a rectangle.

When did 'catting' become a word? You can't just take any old noun and convert it to a verb by adding 'ing' to the end of it. Mind you, I have heard of 'dogging' so maybe 'catting' is something similar.

I reserve the right to come up with words. This is the internet and there are no laws.

Anyone who doesn't understand my lingo can kindly ask me directly what I mean if it is hard to understand what I wrote. English is not my native tongue so sometimes creations like this one just come out of my mouth/hand.

While I'm familiar with the term "dogging" I take the risk of "catting" being something similar as "copy-catting" clearly refers to copying someone's cat or other subjects that look similar like your own and therefore infringe your copyright.

I hope I explained myself probably.  

Unfortunately the lawsuit doesn't need to be valid to have the intended effect. A lot of larger companies pull this nonsense, knowing the smaller company won't have the financial resources to defend itself in the court system.

I understand but in situations like this one the judge would have to be literally blind to not see the difference between the two designs. Even small companies can go to court trying to defend themselves without a lawyer as long as the judge (as in Germany) has some common sense to see that there is no resemblance or plagiarism going on. I think it would be rather harsh to rule that only one company can advertise a milk product using a cow on the design...

Nonetheless it's sad that large corporations "wear out" smaller companies threatening long legal battles. There should be some protection and regulation for that in place. What a perfect world it would be... sigh.

Quote from: gostwyck on July 24, 2012, 16:52

When did 'catting' become a word? You can't just take any old noun and convert it to a verb by adding 'ing' to the end of it. Mind you, I have heard of 'dogging' so maybe 'catting' is something similar.

It's probably not in the Oxford English Dictionary, the the free online dictionary has "copycatting" as a verb. 

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/copycatting

The Urban Dictionary also has catting as in "tom catting"

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tomcatting

So yeah, looks like you can put ing on the end of a noun and make a verb out of pretty much anything

And I might add that usage creates the dictionary as it records language, not the other way around. (no matter how revolting some changes are like Yaht because stupid people left out the C so often?) Oh but it was originally Jaght in Dutch, so who's got the right to complain. It's already perverted.

Ever look at Foundering which became fLoundering? Slang becomes part of the language. Sad but true. Now the word Hippie was a good addition, coined by Steve Allen on his show. 

Frustrated turned into Flusterated (from flustered slacked into a new word?) Most dictionaries don't have it yet and spell checker doesn't but some modern dictionaries have accepted it.

Don't even start with Ebonics, criticized by everyone from educators to Black leaders. If you are saying, what's he talking about. Here's a pretty fair explanation although not covering the politics and issues. There's some backtracking and revisionist history. They did propose to teach it in California.(where else?)

http://lsadc.org/info/ling-faqs-ebonics.cfm

Ree dat mofoco. 

What we have here is clearly "copycow", not "copycat".

I remember a guy I worked for back in the 70s using "flustrated". 

Quote from: click_click on July 24, 2012, 09:28

Our (meanwhile) trained eyes clearly see no resemblance between the two designs, well other than using a cow, but this shows to what lengths some companies go to push a competitor out of the market.

Unfortunately the lawsuit doesn't need to be valid to have the intended effect. A lot of larger companies pull this nonsense, knowing the smaller company won't have the financial resources to defend itself in the court system.

  That's exactly the intended effect. In the US, unless the lawsuit is clearly frivolous, there is no way to recover the costs of defending yourself from a larger competitor. In the case cited, the issue is called "trade dress" , and it comes down to whether a competitive product is playing off of the basic color scheme, name or major elements, so it's not really as cut and dried as a photo infringement. Generally, the product has to have a roughly 20% difference to be okay. Take a look at all the almost exact copies of products in the toy industry.