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Lawyer Trademarks "Cyberlaw"

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the race-to-the-trademark-office dept.

BigTimOBrien writes to mention the EFF is reporting that self-proclaimed cyberlawyer, Eric Menhart, has decided to trademark use of the term "cyberlaw" and is threatening other lawyers with legal action over the term. "I wish I could say I was surprised by this one, but such overreaching invocations of IP rights are all too common -- even where, as in this case, there are no actual "rights" to speak of. But an IP lawyer should know that courts (and trademark examiners, and many tech companies that might be potential clients) don't look kindly on efforts to abuse trademark law to control everyday language. Here's hoping Menhart figures that out fast."

3 of 81 comments (clear)

  1. Re:EFF invented "CyberLaw" by gregorio · · Score: 4, Interesting

    At least, the first mention of "cyberlaw" I can find on Google Groups is this EFF newsletter from 1992-04-30
    It doesn't matter. This is not a patent. Trademarks don't care about "prior art", but for registering and "continued usage" of the trademark. If the term can be proven to be generic, that can also disqualify a trademark registration. But if Donald Trump can trakemark "You're fired!" under a specific context, I'm pretty sure that "cyberlaw" can also be trademarked.
  2. Re:EFF invented "CyberLaw" by Zeinfeld · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Exactly: using it for trade. Just saying "omgwtfbbq eff used it first on a obscure usenet post" does not equal to "using it for trade", which is what the law requires.

    Amazon has fifty books for sale with Cyberlaw in their title. None of them refer to this scumbag lawyer. The term is used as a generic, not a trademark.

    My own book has a Cyberlaw tag on the Amazon cloud.

    I think the reason the EFF is upset is that they suspect a lawyer who uses this type of scumbag tactics probably isn't a very good lawyer either.

    Cyberlaw is a clearly generic. Anyone sending cease and desist letters should be disbarred.

    --
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  3. Re:EFF invented "CyberLaw" by tomhudson · · Score: 2, Interesting

    1. He's a lawyer
    2. Lawyers are people (well, sort of).
    3. Many people can be dumb as sacks of shit.
    4. Ergo, many lawyers are dumb sacks of shit.
    Most lawyers will be obsolete within 20 years. Why pay a lawyer to do shit that you can do yourself with a bit of research? Before the web, people couldn't easily do that research, so they ended up paying big bucks for what, in many cases, is filing paperwork and making the same arguments over and over.