I was just reading Russell Shaw's blog entry about his research on VoIP trademarks and patents here: Exclusive: I visit the Trademark Office and get the scoop on how AT&T will market VoIP | IP Telephony | ZDNet.com and decided to do some investigating of my own.
While doing a keyword search on "voip" like Russell, I too came across AT&T's application for a service mark on "VoIP is Everywhere". I agree with Russell - could be a new catch phrase or marketing term by AT&T.
But then I noticed a really interesting application. Somene is applying for a service mark on the generic word "VoIP". This reminds me of Amazon's controversial "one click" trademark.
In case you weren't aware, Amazon applied for a patent on "one click" ordering and sued other shopping sites that implemented this supposed "novel" idea.
In any case, the applicant attempting to get a service mark on "VoIP is "(APPLICANT) VOIP CORP FOR-PROFIT CORPORATION FLORIDA 7091 GRAND NATIONAL DRIVE SUITE 102 ORLANDO FLORIDA 32819"
Did a quick googlage, but came up empty. I have no idea what company this is. I'm no trademark lawyer, but how can they get a service mark (and potentially a trademark) on a generic term?
Then again, I'm sure lots of people "try" and get trademarks on stuff trying to make a quick buck (by reselling it or charging money to use the term) but their application is declined.
So this could be much adieu about nothing...
