En Words

A place to talk about words - whether from books, stories, magazines, brochures, or matchbook covers.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Trademarking Cyberlaw

According to a blog post at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, lawyer Eric Menhart has applied for a trademark on the term "cyberlaw." Talk about people trying to own language. Has anyone broken the news to Menhart, or to the US Patent and Trademark Office, that the term cyberlaw has apparently been in use since at least 2000? For example, here's a page about a cyberlaw course from then. In fact, here's a reference to top cyberlaw cases, dated from about halfway through 1998. I'm all for owning intellectual property, but, puhlease, how about something original rather than trying to trap a bird of an idea that's already out of the cage?

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