Miscellaneous

The glue used in Post-it Notes was accidentally invented by a 3M scientist who was trying to make a strong adhesive.

Cadbury has used its iconic purple on its products since 1914, originally to honour Queen Victoria as it was her favourite colour. As the company had a royal warrant as an official cocoa and chocolate maker for the British monarch, the colour also established a connection with the Monarchs and helped distinguish its products from competitors.

In a bizarre music lawsuit, John Fogerty, voice of Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR), was sued for sounding too much like himself. After Fogerty went solo, his former label, Fantasy Records, claimed his new hit “The Old Man Down the Road” was a copy of his older song, “Run Through the Jungle.” Fogerty famously brought his guitar to the courtroom to demonstrate his creative process. A six-person jury decided in Fogerty’s favor.

When Henry Ford’s plant generator failed and his engineers couldn’t fix it, he called Charles Proteus Steinmetz, a well-known electrical engineer. After two days of observation and calculations, Steinmetz marked a small X on the machine and directed engineers to adjust a specific coil, instantly solving the problem. He billed $10,000 (a significant sum at the time), later explaining it as $1 for the mark and $9,999 for knowing where to place it, which Ford accepted as the true value of expertise. As Bill Honaker (a former USPTO Examiner) notes, IPR works the same way: a single sentence can determine a patent’s strength, and a small detail can decide a trademark dispute. These small details and solutions might appear straightforward, but they only appear simple and straightforward after decades of experience of IPR lawyers reveal how to carefully draft and identify rights.​