Favre to Patent Media Dog Whistle

One day after his dramatic return to the team, Minnesota Vikings quarterback Brett Favre's agent announced today Favre's plans to patent and market an invention he has been working on for the past two years, which has proven remarkably effective for his client.

"Yes, we recently filed paperwork with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USTPO) for the Media Dog Whistle," Bus Cook said in a teleconference today. "Yes, I can confirm that."

In a press release, Favre's camp revealed the device and how it works. Instead of high-pitched frequencies, the Media Dog Whistle "employs a combination of innuendo, ambiguity and evasiveness. It melds with the users vocal range upon first practice use, and thereafter emits tones that send reporters, columnists, bloggers, and talk show hosts alike into a tizzy of speculation, drawing them, drone-like, to focus unquestioning attention on even the most banal of the users behaviors."
"We have received Mr. Favre's application for patent," said a spokesman for David Kappos, the Director of the USPTO. "Due to procedures attendant to the application process, we cannot comment further."

Assuaging fears they were patenting a mass-scale Pied Piper like device, Cook assured it only works on media from the sector germane to the user. "MSNBC and CBS Sunday Morning won't be compelled to cover Brett when he uses the thing."

When asked why they had not patented the device before, Mr. Cook said, "There was a need for more testing, despite some initial success. [The] events [of August 2-4] have convinced us that we'd worked the kinks out."

He speaks, of course, of "Textgate," when news broke August 2nd that Favre had texted to several teammates that he was "done." ESPN, the Worldwide Leader of Sports, reported that version of events with confident certainty. Within 24 hours, a frenzy like the virus in the movie 28 Days Later had begun to spread, and a word with Brett Favre was a hotter commodity than a lost winning Powerball ticket. Accordingly, locust-like swarms of reporters descended on both Vikings camp and Hattiesburg, Miss. for confirmation. It wasn't true, of course, but merely an illusion caused by the device.

"Absolute genius," remarked Bob Ley, the Dean of ESPN's personalities and among the most respected of sports journalists. "I always knew Favre had some sort of spell over my colleagues. Now we know that source of it."

Like Cook, marketing insiders believe that the device is ready for prime time. "Brett Favre has demonstrated that media can be conditioned to bend to his whims," said a source from a Manhattan advertising agency, who requested anonymity. "Guys like LeBron James and Terrell Owens have shown they could have use for the whistle, so they will probably be among the early adopters," she added.

Cook agreed, stating "we know there is a market for this, and this will be a nice revenue stream for [the Favre family]."

Cook also intimated that plans are already in place to build a manufacturing plant near Hattiesburg. "Brett's past usages of test whistles have been a boon to the local economy, what with all the media and pro football types we've drawn down here. There's no reason the people of this area should not continue to benefit from Brett's ingenuity."

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Andrew Breitbart could not be reached for comment.