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- <text id=89TT2082>
- <title>
- Aug. 14, 1989: Business Notes:Trademarks
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Aug. 14, 1989 The Hostage Agony
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- BUSINESS, Page 55
- Business Notes
- TRADEMARKS
- Imitated But Not Flattered
- </hdr><body>
- <p> The folks at Cliffs Notes can't seem to take a joke. Last
- week the purveyor of the plot summaries so dear to lazy students
- won a court battle to prevent Doubleday from distributing Spy
- Notes, a Spy magazine parody.
- </p>
- <p> Billed as a "guide to the books everyone talks about and
- some people even read," Spy Notes satirizes hip, urban novels.
- A chapter synopsis of a Tama Janowitz novel: "Eleanor goes to
- Wilfredo's apartment for a dinner party. The couples are all
- men. The reader understands that Wilfredo is homosexual. Eleanor
- does not. This is called dramatic irony."
- </p>
- <p> Cliffs Notes objected to a takeoff on its trademarked cover
- design. "The defense `parody' does not magically dispel what
- would otherwise be an infringement," said its attorney. A
- federal judge agreed. Doubleday plans an appeal.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-