<<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=816&e=1&u=/ap/20041028/a
p_on_fe_st/toy_store_homeland_security>>
Homeland Security Agents Visit Toy Store
Thu Oct 28, 5:20 PM ET
ST. HELENS, Ore. - So far as she knows, Pufferbelly Toys owner Stephanie
Cox hasn't been passing any state secrets to sinister foreign
governments, or violating obscure clauses in the Patriot Act.
So she was taken aback by a mysterious phone call from the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security to her small store in this quiet Columbia
River town just north of Portland.
"I was shaking in my shoes," Cox said of the September phone call. "My
first thought was the government can shut your business down on a whim,
in my opinion. If I'm closed even for a day that would cause undue
stress."
When the two agents arrived at the store, the lead agent asked Cox
whether she carried a toy called the Magic Cube, which he said was an
illegal copy of the Rubik's Cube, one of the most popular toys of all
time.
He told her to remove the Magic Cube from her shelves, and he watched to
make sure she complied.
After the agents left, Cox called the manufacturer of the Magic Cube, the
Toysmith Group, which is based in Auburn, Wash. A representative told her
that Rubik's Cube patent had expired, and the Magic Cube did not infringe
on the rival toy's trademark.
Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
said agents went to Pufferbelly based on a trademark infringement
complaint filed in the agency's intellectual property rights center in
Washington, D.C.
"One of the things that our agency's responsible for doing is protecting
the integrity of the economy and our nation's financial systems and
obviously trademark infringement does have significant economic
implications," she said.
Six weeks after her brush with Homeland Security, Cox told The Oregonian
she is still bewildered by the experience.
"Aren't there any terrorists out there?" she said.
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