A “retailing phenomenon” has revolutionized the once peaceful stuffed animal industry. This “phenomenon”, which is loved by children of all ages, is referred to as Build-A-Bear. Thomas K Grose in “Teddy Bear Tussle” writes not about the smiles these bears deliver, or about how happy it makes a child to help stitch up their bear. Rather he writes concerning the legal issues, which surround its cooperation. Since Build-A-Bear has launched, their success has exploded, leaving other companies upset while they try to claim copyrights.

Eric Woods and his wife, owner of Build-A-Bear, find themselves in a stifle of legal issues. Maxine Clark owns the St. Louis Company of Build-A-Bear. She is striving to push the Woodes to selling their company to her, and then fighting to gain copyrights on the ingenious idea. Competitors claim however that their copyrights are weak and the company shouldn’t be copyrighted. They stat that this company similar to fashion designers, since they sell bear clothing. Clark insists that she isn’t trying to end the competition, rather igniting new forms of imagination instead of copying hers.

Thomas K. Grose uses a satirical style of writing to depict this situation. The idea of Teddy Bears being the route of business problems is an easy topic to make a joke out of, while keeping a serious tone. The author achieved this tone by appealing to the emotions of the reader and writing down to a level understandable by most. The title of the article presents the first of several noticeable puns. “Teddy Bear Tussle” is a comical way of explaining the actual legal battle that is occurring.

The article then begins with a quote which presents both a hyperbole of the existence of teddy bears, and an allusion to of things occurring “under the sun”. When put together this quote is relatively funny, and a lighthearted way to begin. Then it continues in the second paragraph with personification discussing small stores “sprouting” around the country. As the article turns serious in context, its writing style changes also. Not again until the end does a noticeable figure of speech arrive.

When discussing the outfits the author closes with the pun that, “the fashion accessory of choice among these bears will be a good lawyer” Grammatically speaking the author uses both good sentence structure and word choice. He uses quite a few quotes, yet they all relay back to his point and only help to strengthen his point. The author’s diction is appropriate for the context of the article. Despite from what some consider serious issues the American public would find this argument comical, and the author plays to this point.

The article was taken from US News and World Report so its typical reader would be someone who is aware of the business world, and an educated member of the American society. Also it is important that the reader understands the concept of copyrighting otherwise they would be unable to understand the context of the article. Personally I think that this was a good article. Even though I am not fully aware of how the business world works, I could comprehend the article, and laugh along with the author.

The author reached his purpose in displaying this point, and convinced me that Build-A-Bear has no right to claim copyrights on clothing for bears. This article would be useful to read if you were interested in business, or topics similar to that. Also it would be interesting to read, if you were a parent who was going to shop at a store similar to Build-A-Bear, it adds a new twist to shopping for your children. As a whole the article was convincing, yet it didn’t show complete bias for either side of the argument. It created a case, and then the information that let you develop your own point.

I think that Build-A-Bear should receive copyrights on their institution, and process of how they have children create their own teddy bears, but they should individually copyright their teddy bears, and accessories for the bears. The author did present this side more convincingly than the other side of total support for Build-A-Bear, yet it equally represented either end of the case. Overall though the author tried to emphasize the comical attitude that this case revolves around, and when I finished reading the article this is what I remembered the most.