"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.