So I came across this over at Improbable Research. It would appear that there is a scientist who believes her name cannot be used without written consent.
Looking at her take-down requests, it looks as if her lawyers are smart enough to not go after those engaging in fair use, but her website statement about it seems overboard and questionable, so it would seem her marketing department does not. I find this rather amusing. Unless, of course, Brendan thinks I’m wrong about my interpretation of trademark law. Where I can freely say, “I like Pepsi” but cannot say, without permission (this is only for illustrative purposes), that “Coke endorses Joe’s Widgets.” Unless of course Coke endorses Joe’s Widgets. Which they don’t. I don’t even think Joe’s Widgets exists. So I suppose it is theoretically possible that Coke does endorse Joe’s Widgets. But this seems unlikely to me. It also might well be possible to cite her in Academic Research or in a News article without violating fair use requirements.
Her note on her contact page is also kind of funny. I get a lot of email too, it’s called spam, and Google handles that for me, I didn’t need to hire an assistant for it.