Hi. I'm thinking about doing the following and was wondering if it is
illegal in the State of Alaska, what crime it might fall under, under
what circumstances is it illegal, and what punishments there might be.

I have a business that I would like to promote, and came up with this
idea. I fold a business card in half, with business card info on one
side and an offer for a discount on a service on the other side. This
business card, when folded, fits perfectly between the crease in the
packaging of a product that directly hits my target market. Anyone
buying this product is a strong candidate for needing my services.

Now the idea is to go into a store where this product is sold and slip
the business card into the packaging. It does not damage the product
or it's packaging in any way and the only way to know it is done is by
opening the box and finding the business card.

Is this illegal in the state of alaska, and if so, what law does it break?

Thanks in advance,
Gabe

I do not know if it is specifically illegal by statute in Alaska such
that it would be a crime, but there are certainly both general legal
principles and federal law that are offended by your idea.

First, your conduct could be actionable as trespass by both the store
and the owner of the product into whose packaging you are going to
slip the card.  Second, the owner of the packaging could sue you for a
form of trademark infringement called "False Designation of Origin"
under what's called Lanham Act Section 43(a) [15 USC Section
1125(a)--see http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/ts_search.pl?title=15&sec=1125).
The theory is that by slipping your card into the packaging you are
falsely leading consumers to believe that your service is affiliated
with or sponsored by the owner of the product.  For example, if I
worked at FedEx and I slipped a flyer for my appliance repair business
into every package I saw was from Sears, do you think Sears would be
pissed?  You bet!  I am freeloading on their shipping, their envelope,
their good name, and creating the impression that Sears endorses my
service.  In like sense, you are capitalizing, for free, on all the
hard work at marketing and packaging and product placement bought and
paid for by the owner of the product.

Why not just contact the owner of the product and propose a joint marketing effort?

If I owed or produced the product that you would slip your card into -
I might sue you.  The reason being that you are associating yourself
with me and I would not want that association.

If the store, on the other hand, found out - they might call the
police.  And if the police want to they can charge you with about
anything.

It seems a bit risky to me.  Tell us what your services is and we
might me able to find a way to market it.

Well the problem is that there is a public bulliten board at a
supermarket, and they take down all our fliers but nobody elses. We
have put up fliers for a computer gaming event (lan party) that we
hold -- they take those down. We also advertise for spyware and virus
removal that we offer -- they take those down too.

And when I say they take them down, I don't mean when they are
cleaning out the board like most places do every month or so, I mean
they take our flier down the day it shows up.

So the proposed business cards have our business card on one side, and
an offer for a discount on a computer gaming upgrade on the other
side.