A Creative Commons Version of Trademark
Updating yesterday’s post about the TechCrunch and TechCrush trademark issue, I’ve had confirmation that it is a trademarked term, it just doesn’t show up in the USPTO search (which as I mentioned, is possible given the disclaimer on the search results).
Mike Arrington has also provided his version of the story on his blog, CrunchNotes.
Overall I have to hand it to Mike. I think he did a great job of dealing with the situation, and if you hunt through some comments on the other weblogs that discuss the issue, he was very proactive, in an open and honest way.
Also, unlike the web 2.0 debacle and a new trademark issue over Real Estate 2.0 (pointed out by my mate Jon of Australian Blogs), which is even more farcical, TechCrunch isn’t just a generic term we all expect to use.
But this raises an interesting issue. How can a corporation protects itself, without having to throw legal letters at companies or people that are not damaging the business. Like Creative Commons with respect to copyright, is there a way to allow none damaging, none commercial uses of trademarks: a way to mash-up logos, make-up terms, or use logos on fan sites for instance.
Perhaps I misunderstand trademarks, but given I’ll be looking at exactly this subject shortly for my start-up web service, code named Web2Thing, I’d love to know everyones opinion.
Is there a way to protect a logo or business name, without restricting interesting or fun uses by others?
September 23rd, 2006 at 2:07 pm
[…] Over on my Clique Communications weblog, I’ve been following the current TechCrunch trademark issues. […]
September 23rd, 2006 at 8:46 pm
it’s a good question rich - just like many of the laws that exist in business today, a number of them have not caught up to our current world.
minter ellison the law firm have an excellent ip article that they publish every few weeks that you can subscribe to for nothing that challenges and reports on such issues. I urge anyone in IT to get it.
however, at law, today, there is nothing that can protect a business from a mash up etc other than the cease and desist letter from one’s legal counsel.
in my normal daily life I encounter this problem a bit - people wanting to use part of our name for their own exploits. the problem is, that if your name, while trademarked, is made up of two or more words and the leading word is an every day word, it makes it hard.
eg mastercard - anyone who wants to create a ‘master’anything.com site can do so at free will. however, when they start using the logo on parts thereof, that’s when the pain starts.
a good test of the TechCrunch trademark issue is to apply the same thought process that was used in the recent mcdonalds submission to trademark the word ‘babycino’…