Talk:Mr. ZIP

Copyrighted?
The article says that Mr. ZIP is copyrighted by the postal service, but the picture says that it is in the public domain because it is government work. Isn't this a contradiction? Itub 20:45, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

US Postal Service images after 1978 (Prior years are public domain) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing#Works_by_the_US_Government 2003 Mr. Zip is copyrighted AND not the work of the US Government as the USPS is a "private" company. Mensch 22:05, 17 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I just uploaded a photo of an old Mr. ZIP sign dated "May 63" which is in the public domain. Jonathunder (talk) 06:18, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Having just received a cease-and-desist order from the USPS (for the use of the original Mr. Zip stick figure) I can chime in here. "'The Postal Service owns numerous federal trademark incorporating depictions of its Mr. Zip design for a wide variety of shipping and mailing related goods and services (See e.g., Reg Nos 1,150,641, 2,960,663 and 3,170,356)... The Postal Service has been using the Mr. Zip design since 1963 and through nearly 50 years of continuous and widespread use, we have acquired extensive common law rights in this trademark. Therefore Mr. Zip is distinctive and uniquely identifies our establishment and our shipping and mailing services.' (emphasis added)"
 * I am not a lawyer, but I interpret this to mean that the USPS does not claim Mr. Zip himself as a registered trademark (only specific depictions thereof), yet they are claiming 'common law' rights to all depictions of Mr. Zip.   That would seem to be a weaker (and arguably dubious) claim.  As the user above has noted and posted, there are numerous public domain depictions of Mr. Zip which predate the incorporation of the US Postal Service.

Mr. ZIP no longer on ZIP Code lookup page
As of June 2012, Mr. ZIP is not shown on the United States Postal Service web page for looking up ZIP Codes. Bill S. (talk) 05:39, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

References, please
There's a lot of unreferenced stuff here and so I tagged it. The one reference given is quite short and doesn't cover:
 * informally "Zippy" -- really? I've never heard or seen anyone all him "Zippy".
 * apparently to teach small children to know to always use the ZIP Code as they got older -- it's not apparent to me. What's the source for this?
 * ...imply his travelling at extreme speed, and sometimes holding on to his hat with his free hand -- none of the various examples in the article or the one ref show either of these.
 * His hair was straight... non racially-identifiable -- What hair? He looks bald as an egg to me. And do we have to bring race into this? Source?
 * This list is not necessarily exhaustive. Herostratus (talk) 08:17, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Mr. ZAP - Postal Inspection Service
Probably not notable, but preserved in "the nation's attic" is the Mr. ZAP puppet briefly used by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

--Lent (talk) 04:58, 17 October 2021 (UTC)