El artículo más loco del día: numero uno

Whereas Bill O’Reilly has his “The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day,” I present the first installment of “El artículo más loco del día” (titled in Spanish for no reason whatsoever, other than for my own amusement: the craziest item of the day), in which I will attempt on a daily basis, as much as possible, to bring to light a piece of news that is, in my mind and in some way, nuttier than a fruit cake on Christmas.

And here’s the primer elemento.

Facebook, at it happens, is attempting to become more ubicuo than it already is (I will also, occasionally slip into Spanish occasionally, at my leisure and for my pleasure, so keep the English-Spanish dictionary handy). According to this article, the social networking hub is attempting to — sit down for this one — trademark the word, “face.”

Aaron Greenspan, who is opposing the move, said that he had a hand in developing Facebook. 

“If you search the patent database, there are thousands of marks that contain the word ‘face,'” Greenspan said. “I understand where Facebook is coming from, but this move has big implications for my company and for others.” ((http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/27/technology/facebook_trademark_face/))

Henry Sneath, a patent and trademark lawyer in Pittsburgh, Penn., doesn’t seem confident in Facebook’s chances of success in trademarking the word.

I’d bet against “face” being awarded to Facebook. You cannot overtake the use of a generic word people use in everyday speech.

The same, I can only imagine, would apply to “book,” lest we are, in the future, relegated to referring to constructs that resemble former books as “written works of significant length, bounded and packaged as a cohesive whole.” “Book” seems like a more workable modelo.