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Keeping America safe from Magic Cube

Agents from the Department of Homeland Security visited Pufferbelly Toys in St. Helens, Oregon. Was the store harboring terrorists? Not quite - the agents asked her to remove a toy called Magic Cube because it was supposedly an illegal copy of the popular Rubik's Cube. Eh? Turns out the Rubik's Cube patent has expired, so Magic Cube doesn't infringe at all. But why was Homeland Security involved?

Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said agents went to Pufferbelly based on a trademark infringement complaint filed in the agency's intellectual property rights center in Washington, D.C.

"One of the things that our agency's responsible for doing is protecting the integrity of the economy and our nation's financial systems and obviously trademark infringement does have significant economic implications," she said.

I really misunderstood what Homeland Security was all about. I thought it had something to do with protecting the USA from terrorists with nasty explosives. It really seemed that would be a full-time job. [Link]

jon posted this at 8:37 AM
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Comments

So what else is new? The Secret Service is supposed to protect the Prez and go after counterfiters, but is seem to remember they raided a game company. And then there was that time the BATF got involved in that child-abuse case in Waco, no?

Posted by: Ell Small | October 29, 2004 1:18 PM