Apparently O’Reilly claims that they own the term Web 2.0 so without their permission academic conferences cannot use this term. Cory Doctorow writes:
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.
I am probably not alone when I say that I like much of the stuff which comes from O’Reilly but attempts to create value in this way show that even organisations which on the surface “get” the effects of the web and have been involved in defining (Not owning or creating) web 2.0 still do some amazingly stupid things…
O’Reilly writes about this story here and includes the following from their VP of communications:
Donagh Kiernan of IT@Cork (to whom the letter was addressed) graciously talked with me late in the work day on a Friday (Irish time), and we’ve resolved the service mark issue. O’Reilly and CMP are fine with IT@Cork using “Web 2.0” in the name of their June 8 conference. And I apologized again to Donagh for the tone of our letter, and for that fact that we didn’t contact IT@Cork before sending it. That’s not the way we want to do business, and as a few of you (OK, more than a few) have noted, it was a mistake.
I’d also like to reiterate that, as Web 2.0 Conference co-chair John Battelle noted, “Remember, Web 2.0 is also about having a business that works. And not protecting your trademarks is simply bad business practice.” We’re not claiming exclusive use of “Web 2.0” in all contexts. Our service mark applies only to “Web 2.0” when used in the *title* of “live events” such as conferences and tradeshows.