An article in the latest issue of science journal Nature [reg only] has lifted the lid on a trademark dispute between games firm Nintendo and geneticists.
Geneticist Pier Paolo Pandolfi, of the the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New Yorkich, identified a gene which caused cancer - and decided to name it Pokemon. Unfortunately Nintendo didn't take kindly to the "Pokemon causes cancer" stories that ensued, and threatened legal action against the scientists responsible.
The research team quietly capitulated, and renamed the less-catch catchy Zbtb7.
One of my colleagues tells me that he interviewed Pandolfi at the time of the discovery - and apparently the scientists concerned weren't too bothered about any potential conflict with the makers of Pokemon. Whoops.
