Intellectual Property Law

'Pull My Finger' iPhone Fart App Dispute Lingers

By Ryan Singel, Kevin Poulsen, Sarah Lai Stirland, Kim Zetter, and David Kravets

The producer of a farting iPhone app is making a legal stink over another flatulence app in a looming trademark battle over the phrase, "pull my finger."

A trademark dispute over the rights to the phrase was bound to happen as dozens of iPhone apps provide a way to fart like the professionals -- from Bigfoot to an old man.

The brouhaha concerns Air-O-Matic of Florida, the maker of the popular "Pull My Finger" app, which claims the maker of rival "iFart Mobile" is misappropriating the phrase "pull my finger" in its advertisements. Such an assertion, according to iFart Mobile maker InfoMedia of Colorado, reeks of an misunderstanding of American fart culture.

Kevin Houchin, InfoMedia's lawyer, explains:

The phrase "pull my finger," and derivations thereof, are generally known and widely understood in American society to be a joke or prank regarding flatulence. The prank begins when the prankster senses the deep stirrings of flatulence. The prankster then requests that an unsuspecting person pull [his or her] finger. The prankster extends his index finger to the victim. As the victim pulls the prankster's finger, his flatulence erupts so as to suggest a causal relationship between the pulling of the finger and the subsequent expulsion of gas. In other words, the phrase "pull my finger" is understood to be a description of the act of passing gas.

Houchin's comments were contained in a Colorado federal court filing (.pdf) seeking a declaration from a judge that InfoMedia's use of the phrase in its advertising campaign "did not and will not infringe upon any valid rights of AOM." A decision is pending.

Air-O-Matic, or AOM, claims iFart Mobile's advertising is creating confusion in Apple's app store fart space.

"InfoMedia's efforts have been directed at merging 'Pull My Finger' and 'iFart' in the consumers' minds, so that searches for 'Pull My Finger' pull up the iFart application," AOM attorney Karen Koster Burr wrote (.pdf) InfoMedia in a letter demanding $50,000 payment.

Burr wrote that "it all amounts to repeated trademark infringement and unfair trade practices that have resulted in substantial direct and indirect damages to Air-O-Matic."

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Full post as published by Threat Level on February 18, 2009 (boomark / email).