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O'Reilly and CMP Exercise Trademark on 'Web 2.0'

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the can't-have-confusion-2.0 dept.

theodp writes "On May 16, the USPTO notified CMP Media, which co-presents the Web 2.0 Conference with O'Reilly, that its trademark for Web 2.0 was entitled to be registered. Eight days later, CMP sicced its lawyers on not-for-profit IT@Cork, taking the networking organization to task for not only using the term Web 2.0 for its free conference, but also for linking to a What is Web 2.0 article penned by Tim O'Reilly." It should be noted that their trademark only applies to the titles of industry events (CMP is a show organizer).

2 of 229 comments (clear)

  1. Re:"only applies to the titles of industry events" by RingDev · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A more accurate comparison would be "Windows"

    Microsoft is a "Windows" company
    So are Anderson, Jeld Wen, Pella, and many others.

    (IANAL, but IMO:) Point being, no one (so far as I know) can trademark "Windows". They can trademark "Microsoft:Windows" or "Windows by Anderson", but the object in the title is just to ambiguous. So maybe these companies should be allowed to trademark "[Company Name]'s Web 2.0" but not just "Web 2.0"

    -Rick

    --
    "Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
  2. Re:Well then... by MrAnnoyanceToYou · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Nah. We just need to go to 2.1, and open source the trademark on that. It's certainly a bigger upgrade than most releases.

    Is anyone else more than mildly disappointed that they own a bookshelf full of O'reilly books after reading this?

    --
    My little site.