Fratagonia is not, apparently, the frattiest mountain range in South America

Fratagonia is a website that sells "On-line retail store services featuring new and used clothing, clothing accessories, drinkware, home decor, and decorative art; Retail store services featuring new and used clothing, clothing accessories, drinkware, home decor, and decorative art; Second hand dealerships featuring new and used clothing, clothing accessories, drinkware, home decor, and decorative art." I did not make up this description of their services. Instead, I copied it from their trademark registration documentation as quoted in the complaint Patagonia filed against them for trademark infringement, trademark dilution, and unfair competition.

Fratagonia has at least two logos:

Pretty fratty. But clearly ripoffs of the Patagonia trademark--even the fonts are the same:

It seems perfectly acceptable for Patagonia to sue Fratagonia, but I feel bad for the fratguy after digging just a stitch deeper into the facts. The Fratagonia mark is registered to a person who I won't name, but based on a search of the Googles he appears to be a 25-year-old entry-level finance type living in a shitty apartment in lower Manhattan. I know it's shitty because based on the trademark registration Fratagonia appears to operate out of it and Google streetview doesn't present it in a kind light. I imagine a dingy one room fifth-floor walkup teeming with Smathers & Branson needlepoint belts and Harding-Lane hats.

If you're thinking of helping him out by buying a tshirt, don't. They're seeking "from Fratagonia its damages and lost profits, and Fratagonia’s profits, in an amount to be proven at trial." And they want that amount trebled! So every dollar you give him could cost him three. Kudos to the kid for incorporating as an LLC though. Perhaps as a result he'll emerge from this litigation personally unscathed. He better hope that Patagonia doesn't try to pierce the corporate veil.

In light of the foregoing I'm surprised Patagonia didn't send a cease and desist letter. And if they did I'm surprised our enterprising young fratistician didn't do the math and shutter the Fratagonia website. I guess he doesn't know about how these things pan out for the little guy.

So That's What Jodeci Has Been Up To

This may be a pathetic ploy to insert some new labels into the bowels of G:TB, but it's hilarious nonetheless. I thought that Jodeci was finished after K-Ci and Jo-Jo took off and became famous as a duo, but I guess they are still available for weddings...

Antonio Pierce's wife and Mets sportscaster Jocelyn Maldonado was having none of it when a Post reporter showed up at her house for a comment about her husband's alleged hijinks. See, before Pierce and Plaxico Burress went to a nightclub (where Burress shot himself), they went to Head Quarters strip club where Pierce was taped canoodling with a mysterious woman. Maldonado slammed the door in the reporter's face after saying, "That's not even him." Still, the Post claims it was—and that the woman later drove Pierce and Burress to the hospital on the fateful night. The strip club video is also given more romance novel treatment in today's Post, which recounts the play-by-play of how the Giants lineman "leans in to kiss her while briefly stroking her buttocks." We wonder if he tried that move on Maldonado at their Maui wedding in May while '90s R&B group Jodeci played their hit "All My Life" as the couple's first dance.