Link roundup

1. Cool Foo Fighters concert t-shirts.

2. Fascinating article at Wired about tech startup incubator Y Combinator, including an anecdote about an investor "who dropped more than $6 million on companies he knows almost nothing about—indeed, some of which haven’t yet decided what business they’re in."

3. A video game company retaliated against a negative review of their game by encouraging employees to write negative reviews about the author's novel. Via.

Alone and Unafraid military patch

Trevor Paglen has a companion site for his excellent book "I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to be Destroyed by Me: Emblems from the Black World" that includes various patches that didn't make it into the book. There was one Alone and Unafraid patch at eBay when I checked. Via.

Rapture Central Computing

Illustrations for Rapture Central Computing from Bioshock. Rapture's great computer will be featured in the Minerva's Den downloadable content:



Via.

*Buy Bioshock posters at eBay.

Illustration roundup

Down the Rabbit Hole art print by NC Winters on sale here.




The Intervention of the Sabine Women by Jacques-Louis David. Via.




Panel from Master of Kung-Fu #17, in which Shang-Chi heals a paralyzed man.




Varsity Donuts logos by Matt Stevens.




The Death Ray by Daniel Clowes. Preorder for $12 at Amazon.

Threadless "summer camp" contest

Threadless is having "summer camp" games May 16-20 that you can participate in at Twitter. Below are the logos for the four competing "cabins."






My favorite is Aled Lewis's Uber Wolf Cabin. You can sign up at the link.

*Buy girl scout patches at eBay.

Link roundup

1. Funny Portal 2 animated gif. And speaking of, it would be cool if Valve made a POTaTOS kit that attached to a typical Mr. Potato Head.

2. How to set up a green screen photo studio for $100. Via.

3. Gallery of beer league hockey jerseys.

*Buy vintage cameras at eBay.

Portal fan art, Aperture logos, Ratman's lair wallpaper

Chell by Mike Krahulik.



Aperture logos through the years.



Ratman's graffiti wallpaper. Via.

And speaking of, this video shows off Ratman's lairs in Portal 2:



*Buy Companion Cubes at eBay.

Illustration roundup

Zuul House Rock t-shirt design by Hillary White up for vote at Threadless.




Logo for Bape's Golden Week Capsule Collection for Summer 2011. Via.




One of several Magic: The Gathering cards recently posted by Igor Kieryluk.





Illustrations by Dan Hillier. Via.




Leo Espinosa posted several new magazine illustrations. (These are the dangers of retirement.)

*Buy Ghostbusters toys at eBay.

Baena case: gnomic utterance awaited

On the right, a Community trade mark; on the left,
an apparently valid later registered Community design

"Take that expression off your face - if you want to keep your design" wrote Class 99 team captain David Musker (here), when relating the lamentable tale of the General Court's ruling in Case T-513/09 José Manuel Baena Grupo, S.A. v Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) (OHIM) and Herbert Neuman and Andoni Galdeano del Sel. David wrote then:

"As with several earlier General Court and OHIM decisions, the citation was taken "as a whole" and no thought was given to comparing like with like - since the design has no mouth, surely the fair comparison is to compare that part of the citation without a mouth to the design? In the context of an infringement, the implication of the General Court's approach is that one could take the entirety of a design, add something and thus avoid infringement. Is that right? What do you think, dear readers?".

Since most dear readers did not take the trouble to think or -- if they did -- they didn't take the trouble to tell Class 99, the unsuccessful party has had to take the step of appealing to the Court of Justice of the European Union, whose gnomic utterance we eagerly await.

********************************************************************

Stop press: I've just noticed that there are two separate appeals in this case. In Case C-101/11 P the appellants are Herbert Neuman and Andoni Galdeano del Sel while in Case C-102/11 P the appellant is OHIM itself.

Take that expression off your face - if you want to keep your design

The General Court has taken its fourth substantive Community Design appeal decision, Baena Grupo v OHIM T-513/09, on these two rather angry gnomes (or "lutins grognant"as the French text has it) - here, in French (Spanish also available).
The case has had a rather erratic history. The citation, on the right, is a published Community Trade Mark (CTM 1312651), and at first instance the Community design (RCD 426895-0002, on the left) was invalidated over the citation considered as a prior right, as being a mis-use (i.e. an infringement) of the trade mark.
The Appeal Board overturned that in Decision R 1323/2008-3 (here, in Spanish), ruling that "use" of an earlier mark in this context did not cover use of something similar (in contrast to the well-known MIDAS decision?) but held it invalid nonetheless, this time on the basis of lack of individual character over the citation considered as prior art.
What did the General Court say? They reversed the Board of Appeal, despite what one might reasonably think to be the overall similarity between the two. The twin bases were: firstly, the identity of the informed user - a teenager or a younger child (the latter was quite important), and secondly, the importance of the angry facial expression (and perhaps pose also) in the citation, as being the thing which would stick in the memory of that informed user.
From a UK point of view, it therefore makes an interesting contrast with the approach in Procter & Gamble v Reckitt Benckiser, firstly because this "informed user" is not stated to be attentive or particularly interested in design issues (and is hence pretty undiscriminating), and secondly because of what seems to be quite a strong role for the doctrine of "imperfect recollection", held in P&G to have lesser significance in design cases.
As with several earlier General Court and OHIM decisions, the citation was taken "as a whole" and no thought was given to comparing like with like - since the design has no mouth, surely the fair comparison is to compare that part of the citation without a mouth to the design? In the context of an infringement, the implication of the General Court's approach is that one could take the entirety of a design, add something and thus avoid infringement. Is that right? What do you think, dear readers?