From: "Robert G Lewis" 

I don't know that this was a violation of the Patriot Act. Congress did
change the laws so the government gets to enforce IP law now instead of the
owner of the IP. Not a good thing in my opinion. Waste of resources.

Bob Lewis

"Robert Comer"  wrote in
message news:4182435a{at}w3.nls.net...
> But, but, there have never been any abuses of the Patriot act, and that
> would NEVER happen...
>
> - Bob Comer 
>
>
> "Adam Flinton"  wrote in message
> news:41823e56$1{at}w3.nls.net...
>> from.....
>>
>>
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=816&e=1&u=/ap/20041028/ap_on
_fe_st/toy_store_homeland_security
>>
>> "ST. HELENS, Ore. - So far as she knows, Pufferbelly Toys
owner Stephanie
>> Cox hasn't been passing any state secrets to sinister foreign
>> governments, or violating obscure clauses in the Patriot Act.
>>
>> So she was taken aback by a mysterious phone call from the U.S.
>> Department of Homeland Security to her small store in this quiet Columbia
>> River town just north of Portland.
>>
>> "I was shaking in my shoes," Cox said of the September
phone call. "My
>> first thought was the government can shut your business down on a whim,
>> in my opinion. If I'm closed even for a day that would cause undue
>> stress."
>>
>> When the two agents arrived at the store, the lead agent asked Cox
>> whether she carried a toy called the Magic Cube, which he said was an
>> illegal copy of the Rubik's Cube, one of the most popular toys of all
>> time.
>>
>> He told her to remove the Magic Cube from her shelves, and he watched to
>> make sure she complied.
>>
>> After the agents left, Cox called the manufacturer of the Magic Cube, the
>> Toysmith Group, which is based in Auburn, Wash. A representative told her
>> that Rubik's Cube patent had expired, and the Magic Cube did not infringe
>> on the rival toy's trademark.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> "
>>
>> Adam
>
>

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