Is That All They Want?

One thing I notice while cycling is that signs and billboards don't always convey the intended messages. 

I saw an example last week, as I crossed the Northern Boulevard Bridge into Flushing:

Is this billboard telling us that if Morgan & Morgan wins your case, all they want is for you to pay?  I mean, I could understand if they feel that way: I've felt the same way about jobs I've done.  

Or should they reverse the order of "Only" and "Pay?" Somehow I think that would entice more would-be clients:  If the lawyer doesn't win, you don't pay.

One would think that in a firm of lawyers, at least one of them would have thought about how they phrase their pitches. 

Where No App Has Gone Before

One of the most difficult things I had to do when I taught freshman English classes was to define plagiarism. 

The standard working definition is taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.  Of course, if such a definition were ever codified as law, just about everyone would be guilty.  After all, so many things most of us say in the course of a day come from Shakespeare, the Bible or other works of literature--or are simply familiar utterances from famous or anonymous folks. As often as not, people aren't aware of the source of whatever they've said, even as they acknowledge that "there is nothing new under the sun."

So I have to wonder how the world would be different if some patent or intellectual-property attorney had too much time on his or her hands in Waterloo, Wisconsin in 1975.  Would Dick Burke and Bevil Hogg have been sued for naming their new bicycle company Trek?

I mean, even if they weren't "Trekkies," I'm sure they would've known about the iconic space-travel series.  Then again, I don't know how Gene Roddenberry would have heard about a couple of latter-day hippies building bikes in the Midwest as the '70's North American Bike Boom was losing steam--or how inclined he would have been to sic lawyers on them.  Somehow, I think the folks at Paramount Television Studios, which purchased Desilu, the original producers of Star Trek, would have been even less likely to know what a couple of dudes in "flyover country" were up to.

What if he'd built bikes?

From what I've read, the company's founders claimed that their choice of name had nothing to do with Captain Kirk's vehicle.  Ironically, Hogg wanted to name the company Kestrel--which would become the name of another bike maker that, a decade later, would pioneer the carbon fiber and fork design on which Trek would still later base their carbon-fiber offerings.

So, I didn't know whether to laugh, cry or cringe when I learned that Trek challenged Jchon Perkins' registration of his trademark name--Prize Trek--for a mobile game app.  Players "participate in a scavenger hunt and win valuable cash (sic) and prizes sponsored by local businesses" according to an Associated Press article.  It is, the article claimed, "a powerful marketing tool that can provide small businesses with free advertising for life."

In 2018, when Perkins applied to register "Prize Trek" with the US Patent and Trademark Office, Trek Bicycle filed an opposition, claiming Perkins' trademark could too easily be confused with theirs.  The following year, the USPTO overruled Trek's opposition and granted Perkins his trademark.

Last year, he sued Trek Bicycles, claiming their opposition had delayed the app's development and market entry.  On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Janet Neff ordered the case dismissed. So Perkins has his trademark, but the app doesn't seem to be available to the public just yet. 

Whatever comes of the app, this story is quite the Trek, I mean, journey.

Is This A Victory For Social Justice—Or A Defeat For Public Safety?

 Last year, I wrote about the debate over the helmet law in King County, which includes Seattle.   The arguments, as I recounted, have been presented as either public-safety or social-justice issues.

On one side, those who wanted to keep the regulation posited the same reasons proponents of similar mandates in other jurisdictions assert: Helmets prevent, or greatly reduce the chances of life-altering or -ending head injuries. This argument is made even more forcefully to require helmets for children, as many locales do. King County has been one of the few jurisdictions to require them for cyclists of all ages.

While opponents don’t deny the value in promoting safety for all, they point to the uneven enforcement of the law. While proponents—who include medical experts as well as some policy-makers and cyclists—cite statistics indicating that “helmets save lives, full stop,” in the words of one researcher, opponents point to equally-persuasive statistics showing that Native Americans (of whom the Seattle area has one of the largest communities in the U.S.), African-Americans and immigrants are disproportionately stopped, ticketed and even arrested because they weren’t wearing helmets.

Notice how I worded the last part of the previous sentence. Too often, critics charge, the helmet law is used as a pretext for stopping non-white, poor, homeless and visibly non-gender-conforming cyclists. Such cyclists are, as often as not, using their bikes as their primary or sole means of transportation.  Or they may be using them to make deliveries or to, in other ways, work. Such riders often ride bikes that were given to them, salvaged or acquired through barter or for little money. This, they may simply not have the funds to purchase a helmet.

Well, opponents seem to have taken the day.  Yesterday, the King County Board of Health voted to repeal the law, which had been on the books since 1993.  This repeal will take effect 30 days after the vote.

While I wear a helmet and encourage others to do the same, I am ambivalent about mandates. One reason is unequal enforcement I’ve described.  Also, as some have noted, attitudes and social norms about helmet-wearing have changed during the past three decades. Thus, some say, all-age helmet requirements probably don’t encourage helmet use: The cycling haven of Portland, Oregon, which has never had an all-ages requirement, has a level of helmet-wearing similar to that of King County.

The repeal, however, does not mean that all cyclists in King County can ride bareheaded:  Seventeen municipalities (which do not include Seattle) have their own helmet codes, which won’t be affected by the repeal.  So, I suspect, the fight is not over.