Can Anyone Own “Web 2.0?”

To many of you out there, this must sound silly. No one can own this concept of perceived usability, right? Or can they?

O’Reilly Media have taken a ton of criticism for attempting to enforce a service mark against a nonprofit group in Ireland that wanted to have “Web 2.0″ conference. O’Reilly exec Dale Dougherty coined the term Web 2.0, and O’Reilly used it for a line of very successful conferences chaired by Boing Boing’s business manager, John Battelle (I’ve been a speaker at Web 2.0 as well, and found the con to be an amazing, eye-opening experience).

The dispute seems to have been resolved amicably. O’Reilly has apologized for sending in lawyers against the con before speaking to them, and has granted the con permission to use “Web 2.0″ in its name.

However, O’Reilly maintains that Web 2.0 is a service mark of their company when applied to conferences, and that other conferences that want to call themselves “Web 2.0″ will have to get O’Reilly’s permission — they defend this as part of the sound business practice of defending a trademark…. Source: Boing, Boing

[tags]web 2.0,o’reilly,conferences,business manager[/tags]