A US company is trying to trademark the shape of its lettuce – but this is just the tip of the iceberg | Arwa Mahdawi

From Rebekah Vardy trademarking Wagatha Christie' to Drake's God's Plan', we live in a world where absolutely anything can be monetised

Hannah Gadsby, a feted, award-winning comedian, has curated an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, about Pablo Picasso's complicated legacy, called It's Pablo-matic. This has absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand - which is lettuce. Rather, I am alerting you to the exhibition because it's proof that terrible puns are now high art. Bear this in mind as I proceed to make as many terrible leaf puns as I can in the next few paragraphs.

OK, lettuce get back to the point. A US company called Little Leaf Farms is trying to trademark the curvy shape of its baby crispy green leaf lettuce. Is this some kind of GM-nightmare leaf, you might be wondering? Has big lettuce deviously planted cells in order to create a super-curvy salad? I wouldn't rule it out, but in this instance it seems the lettuce's shape is natural and the result of a particular seed being grown in a way that results in ruffled edges. Can you trademark that? US trademark experts seem to think it's a long shot, but possible.