Red Tape Snares Maker

According to reports, the United Makers of America, Ltd. have been encountering a rare series of setbacks as they have pursued the trademarking of the term “Maker” as a hedge against the theft of any and all profits and profits from profits ever to be accrued for goods and services that are or may become related to this so far legally unprotected moniker of the super rich class.

Said the visibly irate Maker Thomas Nelson Taylor, point man for UMA’s venture to make “Maker” unavailable to anyone who isn’t one, “How hard could it be for one of these cubicled doofuses at a certain marathon Taker convention going by the name of the US Patent and Trademark Office to find one of the rubber stamps we Makers have paid a small fortune to equip every desk drawer in Washington with?

“My kingdom for just one go-getting Maker slumming it in a Taker’s job so I could maybe get this thing put to bed and move on to putting the next light year of distance between us and America’s Taker class.”

Standing between Mr. Taylor and the Makers’ taking legal ownership of the word “Maker” is the USPTO’s Rita Peterson, a self-described stickler when it comes to dotting and dotting and crossing the small i’s and the small j’s and the small t’s, respectively and alphabetically.

Said Ms. Peterson, “It’s called paperwork, not paperplay. Mr. Taylor is just going to keep getting his application sent back to him until he fills in the box for item 12C with a definition of ‘Maker’ that makes sense.

“A large majority of the applicants on whose behalf Mr. Taylor is seeking joint ownership of the word ‘Maker’ don’t make anything at all, except a lot of money by means that would more accurately be described as taking.”

“Dammit,” said Mr. Nelson Taylor, “the plain, simple fact that we’ve got enough of the American entrepreneurial spirit to make money from a word tells you all you need to know about what separates a Maker from a Taker.

“You can’t look or swim or quack more like a North American Crested Duck in his greatest role as a Maker than that. Here’s a definition of Maker for you:  ‘Makers are the ones who can pass a damn gimme duck test.’

“Or maybe I should define Maker by counterexample: ‘As opposed to a Maker, a Taker is the kind of American who keeps sending an application back because she can’t make sense of a Maker’s simply and clearly defining the Makers as the ones who make the Americans who make all the stuff take it when the Makers not only take all the profits from the Takers’ making but also make out like they’re not the Takers.'

“The good news,” said Mr. Nelson Taylor, “is that the Makers are in no danger whatsoever of having the term ‘Maker’ taken from them by the Takers, as in the Takers of forever to get around to getting anything done.

“Or should I say the Takers of literally forever to make it into America’s Maker class.”

Said the USPTO’s Rita Peterson, “At this point, I would just tell Mr. Taylor to take some advice from this maker and taker of the decisions around here: Before you make your next definition of Maker, take a minute and look up douchebag in the dictionary.”