My Cases Are Never This Fun

From the Seventh Circuit today comes the kind of case a lawyer can only dream about:

Meet Pull My Finger® Fred. He is a white, middle-aged, overweight man with black hair and a receding hairline, sitting in an armchair wearing a white tank top and blue pants. Fred is a plush doll and when one squeezes Fred’s extended finger on his right hand, he farts. He also makes somewhat crude, somewhat funny statements about the bodily noises he emits, such as ‘Did somebody step on a duck?’ or ‘Silent but deadly.’

Fartman could be Fred’s twin. Fartman, also a plush doll, is a white, middle-aged, overweight man with black hair and a receding hairline, sitting in an armchair wearing a white tank top and blue pants. Fartman (as his name suggests) also farts when one squeezes his extended finger; he too cracks jokes about the bodily function. Two of Fartman’s seven jokes are the same as two of the 10 spoken by Fred.

How did these two flatulent fellas end up in Federal Court?

Needless to say, Tekky Toys, which manufactures Fred, was not happy when Novelty, Inc., began producing Fartman, nor about Novelty’s production of a farting Santa doll sold under the name Pull-My-Finger Santa.

In short, Tekky sued Novelty for violating their copyright in Pull My Finger Fred. Could is possibly be worth it? As the court notes:

Somewhat to our surprise, it turns out that there is a niche market for farting dolls, and it is quite lucrative.

Who knew? Sadly, for Novelty, they lost at trial and were rebuffed by the Seventh Circuit. Alas, their arguments stood less of a chance of success than the proverbial farts in a windstorm.