Corporate Lawyers Attempt To Patent The Number Four In Escalating Stripe Dispute
Citizens advised to avoid wearing plaid, corduroy, or garments featuring visible geometry until the legal ownership of basic counting is fully resolved in court.
I have always respected geometry’s undeniable economic power. This week, though, basic arithmetic has entered the legal system after Adidas sued Australian fashion label White Fox over its use of four parallel stripes. Adidas says the design infringes its famous three-stripe trademark. Fictional primary-school maths teachers have since called an emergency summit to establish whether four is simply three in a disguise, attempting to bypass copyright law.
The problem, apparently, is that one extra vertical line on a garment could confuse shoppers beyond repair. Dr. Horace Flume, a specially appointed professor of hypothetical geometry, gave evidence to a room full of empty chairs. He said the difference between three stripes and four is scientifically negligible. Once the human eye gets past two lines, he argued, it sees only a barcode of infinite sadness and gives up counting.
“If we allow people to draw four lines next to each other, what is next?” asked Sylvia Plinth, a freelance counting consultant with no affiliation to any real corporation and a firm position on parallel lines. “Five lines? Six? Soon, trousers will be covered entirely in vertical markings. The global textile industry will collapse into a dystopian nightmare of continuous ribbing. Modern tracksuits rely on stopping at three. Four is pure structural anarchy.”
“Four is an act of pure structural anarchy.”
The concern has spread. An emergency task force of imaginary patent clerks now proposes trademarks for every possible combination of lines up to one hundred. Under the plan, anyone wearing plaid or corduroy in public would need written permission from a multinational conglomerate. The task force is also trying to patent the horizon, on the grounds that it is one horizontal stripe and therefore corporate property.
The International Council of Zebras has issued a frantic, entirely fabricated press release about its hides. Geoffrey, a remarkably articulate ungulate speaking for the herd, pointed out that zebras wear dozens of stripes at all times. They now fear cease-and-desist letters. Several have begun painting themselves solid grey before the litigation reaches the savannah.
Other professions have started taking precautions. Harrison Clef, a local music teacher, has removed all sheet music from the premises because a musical staff contains five parallel lines. He fears this will look like a deliberate, malicious escalation of the three-stripe design. The choir must now sing from memory while facing a blank wall. It has not improved morale.
Meanwhile, highly paid fictional philosophers are drafting a legally binding definition of empty space. Their argument is that the gaps between the four White Fox stripes amount to three negative stripes, proving infringement through missing fabric. Until a court decides who owns counting, citizens should avoid clothes with lines, grids, or visible seams. Amorphous burlap sacks remain the safest option.