Uncle Sam’s Porn Collection: Government lawyer included XXX images in trademark rejection
SEPTEMBER 11—In what is likely one of the dirtiest public filings ever, a government lawyer included scores of pornographic photos as “evidence” to support his decision to reject a California woman’s application to trademark the phrase “You cum like a girl.” In a July notice to applicant Cathy Carlson, United States Patent and Trademark Office examining attorney Patrick Shanahan reported that since the word “cum” was “directly associated with degrading sexual acts,” her trademark request was “deemed scandalous” and therefore not eligible for registration. As first reported by the LA Weekly’s Margy Rochlin, Carlson, an L.A. performer who uses the phrase in her comedy act and puts it on t-shirts she sells, learned of the final trademark refusal via an e-mail that contained several XXX attachments.
So, intellectual property is dead, then??
It used to be that if you worked hard and kept at it, there was a very good chance that someday you could count on reaping your just reward. After all, the economic success of this country was created by those willing to take risks, to work hard, and to put their money where their mouth is. No longer does that seem to be true; not in the United States of Jesusland.
Cathy Carlson is your typical, hard-working American girl. OK, so her comedy act involves sexual references, and it’s not the sort of thing you’d take you nine-year-old to. Does that mean that she is somehow less worthy of the same sort of trademark and copyright protections that other businesses (most of whom donate copiously to Republican causes) enjoy? In the People’s Republic of Jesusland, this would seem to be the case.
Free speech and expression? Only if you’re a White Christian. We don’t truck with smut peddlers here….
In the rejection notice, Shanahan wrote that, “as distasteful as it may seem, the trademark examining attorney refers to a sampling of excerpted materials from the Google search engine in which CUM appeared in reference to ejaculation in hundreds of stories. See attachments.” Those attachments contain the smut, which attorney Shanahan apparently found on two pornographic web sites. As Carlson told the Weekly, “He could have sent one picture. He sent 10 megabytes.”
Perhaps Shanahan just wanted to make the point that he had an overwhelming cache of porn evidence, and that he had done his research. Several boxes of tissues later, Shanahan was no doubt very confident that the lube law was on his side.
