Whose 'good life' is it anyway?
Is there any household in the Western hemisphere that doesn't own a ``Life Is Good" T-shirt, or frisbee, or dog bowl? Ours does. My wife has a T-shirt with their cute little mascot Jake on the front, rowing a racing shell.
The Newbury Street company, founded in 1994 by brothers Bert and John Jacobs, is the Nantucket Nectars of the feel-good retail industry. The brothers started out selling T-shirts in college dorms, working from their car. Now they sell about $80 million worth of shirts and assorted junk in 14 countries, most of it emblazoned with the ``Life Is Good" motto and a smiley-face cartoon of Jake.
Like so many latter-day ventures -- Ethos water comes to mind -- LIG is insufferably cute and well-intentioned. Its CEO is the ``chief executive optimist"; the company makes much of its charitable involvement. Like Madonna and Sean Penn, they want to change the world. ``The brothers dream of creating a billion-dollar company . . . that improves the culture by promulgating inspirational messages," reports the latest issue of Inc. magazine.
Yes, changing the world, one lawsuit at a time. Although the company isn't eager to talk about it, LIG just wrapped up two years' worth of frivolous litigation against LG Electronics, the $35 billion Korean conglomerate that sells DVD players, cellphones, and refrigerators. In a suit filed two summers ago, LIG claims the Koreans' ``Life's Good" ad campaign infringes on their trademark, and alleges that LG's boring corporate logo ``is strikingly similar" to Jake, which it is not.
``Any dissatisfaction with [LG's] products will reflect upon and irreparably damage the reputation and good will embodied in Plaintiff's registered marks," the LIG lawyers wrote. Yes, I can imagine the complaints pouring in: ``Honey! That Korean refrigerator stopped working. Call those T-shirt guys in Boston, will you? It's all their fault."
In their response to the LIG complaint, the Koreans state the obvious: ``Life is good is a commonly used saying" and is ``unprotectable as a trademark." (Maybe some of you remember the Miller Lite ``Life Is Good" ads that aired in 1996?) Last month both parties settled the suit and won't discuss terms. Let's put it this way. The Koreans are still using the ``Life's Good" motto, and their three-story tall ``Life's Good" illuminated billboard is still blazing away in Times Square. ``It's one of the most dramatic outdoor advertisements in America," says LG spokesman John Taylor.
Proving once again that life is good . . . for lawyers with trigger-happy clients.
In August 1983, Bernstein celebrated his 65th birthday in Lawrence, participating in a parade and helping to dedicate a new stage on the common. He then conducted an evening concert by the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, before 8,500 people at Lawrence's Veterans Memorial Stadium, according to Jim Beauchesne , visitor services supervisor at Lawrence Heritage State Park.
Yes. With the help of research librarians, the BPL's Alexandra Merceron ascertained that the library meant to honor Watt, not Watts. ``It looks like human error on the part of the person who did the inscription," she explains. The ``Index to the Persons Commemorated by Inscriptions or Works of Art in the Central Library Building of the Boston Public Library" mentions only James Watt, and the name appears on a frieze next to other men of science and inventors, e.g. Kepler, Copernicus, Arkwright & Co. Case closed.
Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com. 