A little old, but still a good reminder to stay on top of any catch phrases you promote: (via Boing Boing) Can anyone own “Web 2.0?”
O’Reilly Media, originators of the Web 2.0 conferences (O’Reilly exec Dale Dougherty coined the term Web 2.0″, took an Irish non-profit to task for seeking to use the term to promote a “Web 2.0″ conference. Seems pretty straight forward to me (you must defend a trademark to maintain it); but as in all things net related, everyone believes they have an ownership interest in anything they participate in… so the netizens were very vocal in their unhappiness over O’Reilly protecting their service mark. O’Reilly eventually capitulated to the OSS and free speech rabble (of which I am one, but not of the rabid variety), letting the non-profit use Web 2.0 for their conference. Also a good example of the power of Patricia Seybold’s customer-driven company decision making in action (see The Customer Revolution by Patricia B. Seybold and Ronni T. Marshak).
Filed under: Trademark
