Does O'Reilly own Web 2.0?

Filed under: News

Does O'Reilly own Web 2.0?

by Jordan Running May 26th 2006

"Web 2.0," depending on who you ask, is either the future of the Internet, a great buzzword for your résumé, or an overhyped cliché, but what everyone can agree on is the term's ubiquity. That's why, when publisher O'Reilly Media sent a cease-and-desist to Irish non-profit IT@Cork regarding their upcoming half-day Web 2.0 conference, the blogosphere did not take it lightly. How can O'Reilly own "Web 2.0," a term that gets 65 million hits, the vast majority of which are unrelated to O'Reilly, on Google? Yesterday O'Reilly's VP of Corporate Communications Sara Winge spoke up over at O'Reilly Radar on that very topic. O'Reilly's official take is this: O'Reilly coined the term Web 2.0 back in 2003 and CMP, which co-produces their Web 2.0 Conference, has filed to register the name as a service mark "for arranging and conducting live events, namely trade shows, expositions, business conferences and educational conferences in various fields of computers and information technology." Winge says they regret siccing the lawyers upon IT@Cork instead of just talking to them like people, but stand by their right to the name.

My take? I'm a little torn-after all, the ubiquity of the term is incontestable-but I'm tempted to say "oh, just let them have it." Their service mark, in my opinion, is sufficiently specific, i.e. it only applies to conferences and the like and won't enable them to go after, say, ZDNet for their Web 2.0 Explorer blog.

Tags: conference, legal, oreilly, Sara Winge, SaraWinge, servicemark, trademark, web 2.0, Web2.0, web20

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Thomas Hawk said 1:13PM on 5-26-2006

Get your own "Tim O'Reilly, Original Web 2.0 Asshole" graphic here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/153656919/

It's Creative Commons licensed and all, feel free to use it all you like!

Johnnyg0 said 1:23PM on 5-26-2006

This term is so lame and overused that in less than six months no one will want to use it anymore...

...oh wait.. I really should copyright "web 3.0", now THAT is one hell of a good marketing term! :)

Fabulo said 5:26PM on 5-26-2006

If it was their Service Mark (sm) they did a really bad job at protecting it. Owning the (sm) is only the first step, you have to fight all the time to make sure everyone does not use it. We've hears Web2.0 for so long, I personally never saw it spelled Web 2.0(sm) anywhere.

Lots of corporations lost the right to their name or namebrands because they failed to remind everyone it was theirs. I'm not sure o'reilly has a chance on this one.

Franklin said 10:27PM on 5-26-2006

I have dibs on "Web Ultimate".

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