Frenchman steals smiley face.

[thegriffon]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/05/business...=th&oref=slogin

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_031.html

Timeline

1963 - Harvey Ball creates Smiley face for $45. Widely used in advertising from then on.

Sept 1969/1970 - Spain brothers use Harvey's face with the slogan "Have a happy day" on host of items from t-shirts to buttons. Becomes enduring symbol of the early '70s and a global pop-culture icon.

1971 - Franklin Loufrani files a trademark for Harvey's smiley face in France, after selling its use to a French newspaper. Since then he has filed dozens of applications throughout the world and his company SmileyWorld (run by his son) has licenced it to hundreds of companies. The USPTO has rightly said "don't be daft" when he tried to register it in the US, but they're now trying again by adding the words "Smiley".

[Flybrian]

The French people needs to stop wasting their time with silly crap like this and go back to making overpriced food, cars nobody wants, lousy jets, obsolete computer systems, and aircraft carriers that are too short to land planes.

[Sixty8panther]

Dr. Evil: The details of my life are quite inconsequential... very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds- pretty standard really. At the age of twelve I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum... it's breathtaking- I highly suggest you try it.

Seriously, this is just as silly!

Edited July 6, 2006 by Sixty8panther

[76ChevyTrucker]

Its like I've always said. "how many french does it take to defend Paris? No one knows yet because the last time a battalion of US Army soldiers had to do it."

[CSpec]

Statue of Liberty, people....

[76ChevyTrucker]

I full well undestand that the statue of liberty was given to the united states by the people of france, however; I don't like seeing something like that happen where someone else uses an idea that's already been out there in the world for so long as theirs. That'd be like the Russian aircraft company Sukhoi copywriting the use of thrust vectoring engines when other companies have already been using the technology for years.

[Flybrian]

Statue of Liberty, people....

That'd be like the Russian aircraft company Sukhoi copywriting the use of thrust vectoring engines when other companies have already been using the technology for years.

Sadly, Mikoyan and Klimov have something possibly better than ours. While the F/A-22 has two-dimensional thrust vectoring, the MiG-29M OVT does it in three-dimensions. Its something we have with the F-15 ACTIVE from the mid-90s, but apparently aren't doing anything with on an active combat jet. And remember...Russia exports.

[Camino LS6]

Don't get me started on the French...

[FAPTurbo]

Just let him try.

"Some French guy ... versus Wal-Mart Corporation"...

Just repeat that out loud a couple times... and you'll see that this won't go anywhere.