Got Tips?
Lawyers for Tupperware, purveyors of the middle class plastic food containers, have written to El Reg denying it has anything to do with that nasty containerisation tech so beloved of the storage world.
According to an email sent to us last week and neatly hidden from our sight by ever-vigilant spam filters, the Tupperware Brands Corporation says it is "inappropriate" to compare its lunch containers with software used to squeeze more data into less space.
Which makes perfect sense. What sysadmins amongst you haven't woken up, said to yourselves, "Right, time to get cracking with $virtualization_vendor_du_jour" – only to instead reach for a plastic tub containing last night's reheated curry? Yep, we've all done it.
This being a mid-week afternoon, we've decided to celebrate by reproducing the Tupperware snottogram for your reading pleasure. So, without further ado, here it is:
Dear Sirs
We are writing on behalf of Tupperware Brands Corporation of Orlando, USA.
Our client is the owner of trade mark registrations for TUPPERWARE which date back more than 50 years, including UK registration no. 817143 and EU trade mark registration no. 334599. Prints of these are attached.
There is an article in The Register, posted 5 July 2016, with the title “One container to rule them all? No. A Tupperware refresher”. Tupperware Brands owns the exclusive right to use the name TUPPERWARE to designate its own goods. Inappropriate use of the brand as if it were generic can be detrimental to it.
We appreciate that an innocent mistake was probably made, and trust that on such basis you will arrange for prompt amendment of the online article.
Please can you let us know when the article has been changed. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
Regards
Jane More O'Ferrall
Partner
Haseltine Lake LLP
European Patent & Trade Mark Attorneys
The offending story? It can be read here. It's really very good, even by El Reg's impossibly high standards.
Perhaps Tupperware's legal eagles are upset because we didn't write it as Tupperware, or TUPPERWARE, instead of writing "tupperware"? Maybe we should rebrand them as TupperWare™, or TUPPERware? Still, as they're upset, we've added this to the end of the original containerisation story:
Following a letter from lawyers acting on behalf of the Tupperware Brands Corporation, of Orlando, USA, we are happy to amend our original headline, which appeared to refer to the products of Tupperware Brands Corporation, of Orlando, USA. We'd like to clarify that said brand has at no time had any connection with the particular subset of virtualisation software carrying out the function known as "containerisation".There is no suggestion that the Tupperware Brands Corporation, of Orlando, USA, has ever wilfully engaged in or encouraged wanton acts of so-called "containerisation" other than as properly carried out with small plastic boxes borne by office drones to and from their places of work.
Now, if you'll excuse me, it's lunchtime and I have last night's ruby to demolish. ®
