After Effects
The most direct result of the suit was a windfall for Franken and his publisher, Penguin Group (USA). The book had originally been slated for release on September 22, 2003, but the publicity resulting from the suit prompted Penguin to move the release date up to August 11 and print an extra 50,000 copies, for a total of 435,000; the book was an immediate bestseller. For its part, Fox News Channel was ridiculed by commentators and bloggers on both sides of the political divide, many of whom suggested that the network had filed the suit to placate Bill O'Reilly in the wake of his run-in with Franken at the BookExpo panel.
Drawing on Judge Chin's concluding remarks, Franken suggested that Fox News adopt "wholly without merit" as its new slogan to replace the possibly invalid "fair and balanced". In a more serious response, in December 2003, the Independent Media Institute, publishers of the liberal Web site AlterNet, filed a petition to cancel the trademark in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, calling it "notoriously misdescriptive." The Institute and Fox settled in 2005, and the TTAB accordingly dismissed the petition without prejudice.
In 2004, Franken began hosting a talk show, originally titled The O'Franken Factor, on the Air America Radio network. The program's title was a jab at Bill O'Reilly's show, named The O'Reilly Factor. Franken said that he chose the name to "annoy and bait" O'Reilly into filing another lawsuit. Three months later, Franken changed the name to The Al Franken Show, which he hosted until 2007, when he announced his candidacy for a United States Senate seat in Minnesota that was to be challenged in 2008.
The case was documented as part of The First Amendment Project.
Read more about this topic: Fox V. Franken
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