Catbert and Wally: an IP analysis

It's a long time since a Dilbert cartoon featured on this weblog -- a year ago, in fact ("Not enough to make a Kat laugh", here), when this member of the team needed some explanation regarding the humour of a triptych based on an intellectual property theme.  Well, the Kat has just encountered another IP-rich triptych.  This time he thinks he understands it.

Catbert (the evil director of human resources) starts off as the apparent villain of the piece. The key word here, missed by speed-readers and people whose eye is drawn to the final, punch-line box before they have finished digesting the contents of the preceding boxes, is "anonymous". How, but through the manifestation of evil, can Catbert have known that Wally was the author of the anonymous comments?

The second box reveals the subtlety of Wally, who as it appears is playing the system.  From his endorsement of the literary oeuvre of the Unabomber (Ted Kaczynski) he makes it plain to Catbert that he is familiar with, and approves of, the writings of the author of the "Unabomber Manifesto" (Industrial Society and its Future, here), a very different society from that in which Catbert wields his power.  Wally, knowing Catbert, must have calculated that the employee survey was not therefore anonymous.

The dénouement reveals both Catbert's concern that "we" (meaning "I") have a problem and that Wally, while endorsing the fact that a problem exists, winds Catbert up by nominating an intellectual property issue (which, within the context of the workplace is small, trivial and of no consequence) rather than admitting to the sort of problem which an employee with Unabomber tendencies might pose to an employer in general, and to human resources in particular.

Not enough to make a Kat laugh ...

It's sometimes said that cats have no sense of humour, a proposition that the Kats would keenly dispute. However, every so often something happens that makes one of them pause for reflection. One such event was an encounter between this member of the IPKat team and the Dilbert cartoon displayed above, kindly drawn to his attention by Pinsent Masons partner Iain Connor.

The first panel of the triptych expresses the proposition that all future ideas are already covered by over-general patents, a premise with which many US readers will readily resonate -- though one which the less generous patent laws of Europe would render inappropriate. The second panel appears to be a conceptual disjunction. Is the sudden switch from patents to trade marks a deliberate ploy to draw the reader's attention from the field of innovation to that of branding, since (unlike ideas) all future brands have yet to be covered? Or is it a consequence of the common misconception among laymen that the monopolies conferred by patents and trade marks are synonymous?

If the second panel puzzled the Kat, the third one confused him totally. Why should the fact that one takes cases on a contingency basis be the trigger for the requirement that one knows how to be a lawyer? Is this perhaps an American in-joke, or is there something completely obvious that the Kat, wearing his normally analytical cap, has overlooked by an attempt to over-intellectualise a good joke? Readers' comments are invited, particularly if they can explain the caption. There's also a poll in the left-hand side bar, for those who are interested.

Confuse a cat here

Enough to make a cat laugh here and here

Can cats smile? Click here

Can cats grin? Click here