This year, millions of people freely exchanged "l Love You's" for Valentine's Day, but the next time you use the phrase, you’ll owe a man named Brian Wright a dollar.

As of February 15th, 2006, Wright officially trademarked "I Love You" and says he plans on squeezing every penny out of star-crossed lovers with a dozen lawyers on staff who are ready and eager to protect his intellectual property rights. 

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“I’ll say ‘I love you’™whenever I damn well please!”
— Jim Bolten, lover

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"I couldn't believe it was still available," said White from his cell phone in the backseat of his new Bentley.  “I remember hearing that the song ‘Happy Birthday™’ is owned, so why not “I Love You™”?  

Wright has joined thousands of entrepreneurs who are getting rich off the business of trademarking popular phrases.  The wordy bonanza is reminiscent of the dot.com era, when web site names were snatched up for large sums.  

“I’ll say ‘I love you’™whenever I damn well please!” says Jim Bolten, who recently fell in love.  “I’d be in serious debt by now if this clown ever collected.”  Ker-ching.

Dr. Mindy Cohen is a speech therapist who says there are plenty of other ways to express love.  “It’s not the end of the world™, says Cohen, “don’t give up™.  People can use American Sign Language™, or express their love by groping each other more, or finding inventive new roundabout expressions, such as ‘I more than like you, Jill!  See?  We're not limited to just I love you’™— whoops.”

A former love interest of Wright claims that he’s still bitter from their break-up, and that he’s acting out, passive-aggressively, by trying to limit the expression of others.

"Yeah, well allegations like those are the reason why I’m also buying the rights to 'Up Yours!™' so I can always get the last word in.”