Legal news, some illegal. All of it interesting
1. Vegan Bakery Allegedly Selling Dunkin’ Donuts
Maybe it was the little “Ds” sprinkled on a donut with Dunkin’s signature colors. Maybe it was because it looked like donuts Dunkin’ posted on social media. Either way, it didn’t take long john for owners of a New York vegan market to suspect that pastries they ordered from a “vegan” bakery came from the chain. The baker denies being guilty in this whodunkinit and says the sprinkles were extra from a birthday party. But suspicion’s a cruller and tests found the “D” donut loaded with gluten. Dun dun dun(kin). State food safety officials are investigating and say the complaint’s the muffin top of a long list against this baker.
2. Dog Fight Over Pet Gives Appeals Court Paws
A Massachusetts couple’s love went for walkies and never came home but adoration of their Pomeranian, Teddy Bear, was furrever. So, they agreed to share custody – until one of the men said “go fetch,” the dogs staaaaays with him. Teddy Bearless sued. A judge ordered the dog hog to stick with the agreement. On appeal that ruling was nixed. The justice howled that Teddy Bear is chattel and the lower court improperly treated him as a baby waby schmoofy. Teddy Bearless appealed. This time a three-justice panel ruled for him – not because Teddy Bear’s a precious fur child, but because the shared-custody agreement was a contract the court can enforce.
3. Double-swipe of Gas Card = Free Gas & Felony Charges
A Nebraska woman was allegedly pumped to discover that double swiping her gas rewards card gave her free gas! What’s not to love? Prosecutors say she lived her best life for several months until the ol’ Pump & Pantry noticed a valued rewards customer used their card 510 times, pumping more than 7K free gallons of gas worth $28K. They pressed the brakes and felony charges. A software glitch caused the gas pump to go into demo mode when the user swiped twice, allowing free fill-ups. Sadly, the most rewarding gas card ever is officially out of fuel and the alleged gas guzzler’s out on bail.
4.R2-MeToo? Male Robot Debuts Troubling Behavior
Well, this is awkward. A Saudi robotics company proudly unveiled its first humanoid robot, a male dressed in traditional Saudi attire and able to speak Arabic and English. Cool right? Except during a presentation to introduce “Muhammad” he appeared to grab the backside of a female human reporter. The footage of course went viral obscuring what the government hoped would be a spotlight on the country’s AI achievements. What they got were memes and hard drive jokes. The company says the robot did not malfunction but they are taking measures to keep humans from standing too close lest Muhammad get Mu-handsy again.
5. What in the Wordle? NYT’s Sending Takedowns
The New York Times is going after copycat Wordle puzzles. And it’s not giving six chances either. NYT sent copyright takedown notices to developers who have created games similar to the wildly popular game it purchased from the creator two years ago. Many of the clones are versions of the game in languages other than English. But the newspaper says its five-letter beef isn’t with people creating versions that don’t infringe on Wordle’s trademarks or copyrighted play. Its issue is with developers like the GitHub user who created a clone project that instructed others how create knockoffs that use the NYT’s Wordle trademark.
