Zillegalities

Some of the Ninth's Circuit's reasoning in Toho Company, Ltd. v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 654 F.2d 788, 790-94 (9th Cir. 1981) (opinion by Judge Farris, with Judges Fletcher and Kennedy) included the following:

Thus, Toho's Section 43(a) [Lanham Act] claim must fail if Sears' use of the Bagzilla name, figure or slogan poses no likelihood of confusing consumers by suggesting that the Sears trash bags were made, sponsored or endorsed by Toho...[T]his much is not disputed: Sears sells garbage bags. Sears uses "BAGZILLA" instead of "GODZILLA" and puts the Sears name prominently on the package. The representation of the creature is a humorous caricature rather than an exact copy. The marketing channels are different. [Para.] The goods are unrelated as a matter of law...Moreover, the contention that Sears intends to confuse consumers is implausible: Sears only means to make a pun...Sears' use of "Bagzilla" has not impaired the name and effectiveness of the name and image of Godzilla. (citations and footnotes omitted)

Dave ("Davezilla") Linabury says he's sticking to his guns. Dave also appreciates that professionalism has much to recommend it ("One thing that we might want to avoid, however, is sending any more emails to Toho, under my name, calling them penises. That really isn’t helping matters for me. Thanks... "). See earlier discussion here, here and here.
--Later: meet Pongozilla.

Gitalong, Li'l Blawgies

Life is good for the Blawg Patrol this summer. Within the last few weeks, Ernie has established his way-cool law blogs outline, and JCA has set up what is, to my knowledge, the first blawg webring (now up to 18 entries). This was all good news for the agents, who still are managing to squeeze in some investigatory work, but also are realizing the importance of fun in the great outdoors. Thus, after dragging home from the Azores, they all insisted on heading southwest for the Big Summer Blawg Roundup. Here's who they've recently roped:

Larry Lessig!! [Thanks, Doc]

Garrett Moritz, a Harvard law student with a penchant for handstands, Britney and Harry Potter, and the more than occasional rant. [Via The Volokh Conspiracy]

Drumroll please: Agent Altreuter bagged one of the BP's Ten Most Wanted: a blogging legal secretary, Joni Mueller. As added bonuses, Joni does appellate work and is partial to things red. Like Garrett, Joni's blog is part of a larger site ("2 Fools And A Modem"), with much to explore.

Broc Romanec blogs for R.R. Donnelly's RealCorporateLawyer.com, primarily about the SEC and securities issues. [Via Genie Tyburski's TVC Alert]

Brian Peterson hails from West Virginia and serves up legal news and commentary. He was corralled by Director Svenson, whose blawg-tying skills have earned many awards down on the Ranch.

Ernie's Outline also yields,

Alvin Borromeo, Carey Gage, Dilan Esper, Seth Farber, Michael Fox, Michael Lopez, Damian Penny, Michael Wade, law student Alice W. (very fun site) and "exlpoded" law librarian Morgan Wilson,

while the following blawgers are new to me from the Blawg Ring,

law students Anthony Santagati III (more here via Ernie) and J.M. Branum.

Phew, with that I'm bound for some grub, stargazin' and blawgy ballads...

Non-Oral Body Parts

One ankle down.

Trellix And Blawgers?

It's too early to tell of course, but Trellix might turn out to be an attractive alternative for non-techy business types who yearn to answer the call of the blog. [Via Ev] The press release discussing Trellix's on-board blogging plans touts giving "builders of all technical abilities the power of a blog and the features and flexibility of a web site." And Dan Bricklin's vision is provocative:

I'm excited because finally I'll be able to tell people who want to blog that they can just go to some URL, sign up, and create their blog and associated pages without my help. There's no installing anything. There's no asking me for help in making their web site look the way they'd like. There's no asking me to make the "About Me" page. If they want "www.theirname.com" they can do it (if the service provider allows). They can do it all themselves. (Well, they probably will still ask me to take their picture with my digital camera...) This is not just ease of first setting up, but also ease of getting all the way that most people need and want. As a usability guy, and lover of the blog phenomenon, this gets me very excited.

While it may prove too basic and limited for someone who's an old hand at building and running Web sites, for someone like me of only, ahem, modest technological acumen, well it gets me excited too. Personally though, I'd like to see the final results emulating on a larger scale what b!X is doing with his Spartaneity Project, rather than simply bolting a weblog component onto Tripod, etc. More reflections on the potential of Trellix are in this thread on Blogroots [via Dave Winer], where Anil Dash notes how cumbersome it is for "users to pick a hosting company, pick a blogging company, pay a fee to each, and then perform the integration work by hand," and MisterMorgan has this to say: "Blogger's UI is just so darn good people are willing to add bits to it piecemeal--a blogrolling tool here, a comment system there--but it would drive me nuts after a while to keep track of all those logins and different admin interfaces."

More Re Science, Explained

(An oldie but a goodie.) Martin Sargent elucidates the finer technological points of Big Mouth Billy Bass. [Via TechTV] See also Marsette Vona on "How to make a talking fish say what you want," and Am I Annoying (while it does not appear possible to vote on whether Billy is annoying -- how fleeting, fame -- The Coelacanth is fair game: "Occupation: Fish").
--Later: Jeremy, via Fishrush