I’m not sure which lawyers you are referring to. Both sides had lawyers. The lingering copyright claims on Happy Birthday are a disgrace.
Did you know that outside the U.S. the happy face icon is copyrighted by a company in France. The happy face was created by a company in Ohio as part of an internal employee morale program for Amica Insurance of Worcester, Massachusetts, and passed into the public domain when no one thought to register a copyright, except a company in France, a copyright not recognized in the U.S.
I had no idea the Smiley is actually *big* business:
The rights to the Smiley trademark in one hundred countries are owned by the Smiley Company.[21] Its subsidiary SmileyWorld Ltd, in London, headed by Nicolas Loufrani, creates or approves all the Smiley products sold throughout the world.[citation needed] The Smiley brand and logo have significant exposure through licensees in sectors such as clothing, home decoration, perfumery, plush, stationery, publishing, and through promotional campaigns.[22] The Smiley Company is one of the 100 biggest licensing companies in the world, with a turnover of US$167 million in 2012.[23] The first Smiley shop opened in London in the Boxpark shopping centre in December 2011.[24]In 1997, Franklin Loufrani and Smiley World attempted to acquire trademark rights to the symbol (and even to the word "smiley" itself) in the United States. This brought Loufrani into conflict with Wal-Mart, which had begun prominently featuring a happy face in its "Rolling Back Prices" campaign over a year earlier. Wal-Mart responded first by trying to block Loufrani's application, then later by trying to register the smiley face itself; Loufrani in turn sued to stop Wal-Mart's application, and in 2002 the issue went to court,[25] where it would languish for seven years before a decision.
Wal-Mart began phasing out the smiley face on its vests[26] and its website[27] in 2006. Despite that, Wal-Mart sued an online parodist for alleged "trademark infringement" after he used the symbol (as well as various portmanteaus of "Wal-", such as "Walocaust"). The District Court found in favor of the parodist when in March 2008, the judge concluded that [Wal-Mart's] smiley face [logo] was not shown to be "inherently distinctive" and that it "has failed to establish that the smiley face has acquired secondary meaning or that it is otherwise a protectible trademark" under U.S. law.[28]
In June 2010, Wal-Mart and the Smiley Company founded by Loufrani settled their 10-year-old dispute in front of the Chicago federal court. The terms remain confidential.[29] (wikipedia)
They didn't build anything....produce anything...nothing you can look at, or put your hands on....and they walk away with millions of bucks from some so trivial...
Maybe I'm just old...and bitter...I guess I just don't understand the way the world works now-a-days...
:(