ora owns web2.0 - and will sue your ass if you try to use it

[Nigel Hamilton]

>>
>> There, everybody's happy.
>
> Well, depends how aggressive ORA is planning on being defending their
> service mark.  Is "Web 3.0" confusingly similar to "Web 2.0"?  It's possible
> that if they tried, they could convince a judge so.  It's fairly certian
> that if they tried, they could get a preliminary injunction, which would be
> plenty to stifle compitition.
>

One of my first cases involved a similar question of potential confusion 
between two events [1].

My client, a hippy, decided to hold an alternative lifestyle festival 
called "EARTHAVEN CONFEST" the trade mark office held that this was 
confusingly similar to a long standing event called "CONFEST" and was not 
registrable.

I think the trade mark office would easily find confusion between "WEB 2.0" and "WEB 3.0".

I learnt lots of lessons from that case:

 	* don't mess with hippies
 	* the more distinctive (not descriptive) the trade mark is the better
 	* trade marks matter, even if not for profit (i.e., so what are the TPF smoking?)

If the average hippy commune can get their IP in order why can't The Perl 
Foundation (TPF)? Or is it, to quote my client, "too heavy man"?

Nige

[1] http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/disp.pl/au/cases/cth/ATMO/1998/10.html?query=%5e+confest