kitties cats??

Clothing company Patagonia is currently sueing drag queen Pattie Gonia for "irreparable” harm to their brand.

To be clear; Pattie named herself after the region in South America.

So Pattie is asking people to politely ask Patagonia to drop the lawsuit.

I'm extending the invitation to all of you, because sueing a drag queen for 'infringement' in the current political cultural landscape is vile. Especially a drag queen who has raised millions of dollars for non-profits, uses her platform to raise awareness for climate activism, and fully aligns with Patagonia's apparent climate-conscious mission statement.

They're claiming they're sueing for $1. They're actually asking her to stop using her name, and pay over $1 million in legal fees. They're straight up harassing her.

In contrast, drag queen Jan Sport has a Jansport bag line. It's that easy to just... work with a queen.

Anyway. Be respectful(ish), but feel free to be annoying on Patagnoia's socials, asking them to 'DROP THE LAWSUIT'

This is being discussed heavily on Bluesky, such as here.

I’m a law student specializing in Intellectual Property, which includes Copyright and Trademark. I’ve studied these subjects and the law is clear that everything y’all said about Patagonia “losing the trademark” if they don’t sue Ms. Pattie is absolute bullshit.

Trademarks are only lost if they are abandoned by the user or if the product made by the company becomes so ubiquitous, everyday, and common that people start calling all types of that product by the trademark name. This is called genericide, because the trademark has become so generic, it is no longer an indicator of one singular source. Think Band-Aid or Thermos; we use those terms to refer to the generic products they’re associated with. We call pretty much all sticky bandages Band-Aids and all containers used to keep things warm in Thermoses.

What Patagonia is doing is actually closer to suing for trademark infringement based on tarnishment, which means the infringer is using the trademark name in a way that makes the company look bad or associates the company with things like drugs or pornography. Queen Pattie Gonia is someone who raises awareness for climate and environmental activism. Nothing about Miss Gonia’s use of the name tarnishes Patagonia’s brand.

The only possible argument the company has is that Miss Gonia’s queer identity could be seen as not “adult-friendly” but that very quickly slides into homophobic and moralistic territory that will absolutely be shot down by the court based on First Amendment rights. People are allowed to use “not safe for work names,” based on caselaw that states that “labels that are disparaging or morally offensive” are a violation of free speech because it’s people’s choice to say and use those names. For example, an all-Asian band applied for the trademark name “The Chinks” because they were taking the racially disparaging name and reclaiming it. The Trademark Office attempted to refuse to grant the band’s trademark, and when the band sued, the Supreme Court sided with the band.

That got off on a little bit of a tangent, but the long and short of it is this: Patagonia has absolutely no basis for a trademark name. Any IP lawyer would say the same. The reason Patagonia is getting away with a frivolous suit like this is because they know their target is a member of a vulnerable minority. Miss Gonia is 100% correct that they are trying to bully her because they know she doesn’t have the money to withstand a years-long expensive lawsuit.

It’s because of idiotic bootlickers who kiss companies’ asses like this that big corporations can get away with hurting independent creators. Patagonia does not have any chance at winning, but they know that just by filing and announcing their lawsuit against Miss Gonia, they are putting pressure on her to give up. If this lawsuit goes on, even if it doesn’t make it to court and just goes to a judge for a quick summary judgment, Miss Gonia would still have to pay for a lawyer to defend her and lawyers cost more money than the average person has. Miss Gonia would win, but because Patagonia set the damages for $1, even if she did win, she’d still end up in debt because in America, the typical rule is that each party pays for the cost of their own attorney’s fees. The only time the opposing side would pay your lawyer’s fees is if you have a contract with them that says so, and that’s usually only used in contracts between businesses or high profile individuals.

That being said, reading Patagonia's actual complaint... they wanted her to not use the words "Pattie Gonia" on any products, regardless of font or logo? Seriously? & it seems the logo shown above was never a product she was selling but rather fan art they wore on social media. He is running a clothing brand, yes, but the clothing he's selling is not trying to look like Patagonia clothes or imitate its logo, & the brand seems fixated on the fact that Pattie wears fan merch of the logo or jokes about Patagonia clothes in a Ted Talk.

Which, sure, I get the claim that people might think they are formally related (their evidence for that is a few Tiktok comments). But, as I (a laywoman) understand it, their claim is based around Pattie selling clothes that infringes on their trademark since they are a clothing brand specifically, yet his merch doesn't imitate Patagonia's to my eyes, and their most compelling evidence is Pattie saying or wearing things that relates to their brand, not the things they are actually selling. Again, the logo shown above was seemingly never being sold by Pattie, it was just something someone made him that they wore in public. If she did sell that logo, why didn't they put that in the complaint? & again the ask of her not using the name Pattie Gonia on merch at all, no matter how it is presented, just seems ridiculous to me? Its a pun based off a fucking geographic range, man.

Regardless, whether Patagonia is legally in the right in the lawsuit, and whether we should give a fuck about the legal rights of a multinational corporation, are two different questions. We will see how this plays out in the legal field, but personally I think even if it comes out in Patagonia's favor, its fucking stupid.

I am also annoyed seeing people in the notes defending Patagonia as this poor innocent company, "owned by its employees," which does so much good work and is being unfairly maligned! & the claim that it is employee-owned surprised me, so I wanted to look it up, and oh boy did I find some interesting information on Patagonia Inc.'s business practices re: human trafficking and taxes!

1. The court holds Google responsible for statements made by its AI, considering them Google's statements (search engines have limited liability for results in their engine as they're the words of other sites/companies/people), meaning when their AI lies/hallucinates they're liable for the defamation/harm resulting from those statements.

2. Google's defense that customers are generally aware of the lack of reliability and are responsible for fact checking was dismissed. As the court pointed out, that would "significantly diminish" AI Search's stated purpose and it can't be distinguished from Google's business practices/statements as a search tool.

3. Studies have found about 91% of Google's everyday AI responses are accurate, leaving millions of searches per HOUR with potential liability for falsehoods. 56% of correct responses weren't supported by the sources the AI listed. Both of which mean Google is now liable for a LOT more AI "errors."

4. Google was held liable for 80% of court costs in this case and this precedent is expected to reverberate around the world. This is a massive shift from the 3rd-party search provider role Google has previously played and it comes right as they've tied ALL searches to their AI search.

For all the reasons above AND ALSO because this particular lawsuit is a defamation case

Privacy lawsuits are hard because most privacy laws are super super weak, and there's very rarely a lot of money or enforcement backing privacy laws for...twenty million reasons, really...

But defamation suits? Those have teeth.

(In large part because, at least in some countries and including in the US, defamation laws protect public figures the least - and "public figures" legally includes most if not all politicians, and a hell of a lot of other rich ppl too)

A German court has ruled that Google can be held directly liable for false claims made by its AI Overviews, a decision that could put a serious legal dent in the whole “the AI made me do it” defense. According to The Next Web, the Regional Court of Munich issued a temporary injunction after Google’s AI Overviews wrongly tied two Munich publishers to scams, subscription traps, and dubious business practices. The court treated those AI-generated summaries as Google’s own statements, not just ordinary search results pointing to third-party pages. That distinction matters. Search engines have traditionally had more protection because they index and link to other people’s content. AI Overviews changes the machinery. Google is not just showing the web anymore. It is summarizing it, rewriting it, and sometimes apparently hallucinating a tiny legal grenade into the results page... This is still a preliminary injunction, not a final ruling, and Google can appeal. But for publishers, brands, SEOs, and anyone watching AI search swallow the results page, the message is clear: if Google wants to be the answer engine, courts may start treating it like the publisher of those answers.

after paying rent, part of my phone bill, and my car insurance, i only have $47 bucks to my name.

the government cut off our food benefits (calling them about that tomorrow 😔) and we don’t have money for food and upcoming bills, let alone rent for next month.

things are still in the shitter tbh. i don’t want to put how much we need on this post because i feel like begging the internet for thousands of dollars is absurd and just. sad. i guess. a rough estimate is like 2k give or take.

as per usual if you have anything to spare this pride to keep a black queer couple housed and safe it’d mean the world to us. i’m still working on commissions so if you’d like art of an oc or character you like i gotchu!

thanks again and as always sorry about this 🫩

so they basically fucked up our food aid and they don't know if they'll get it reinstated. 2 work orders have been placed at this point and i'm just not really confident in anything atm. my partner and i have barely eaten in like 2 weeks so if nothing else, anything that can help with food costs would be appreciated.

since i forgot to add them to this post before links below.