Davey Winder
Sunday, 03 August 2008 21:22
IT Policy -
Regulation
Page 1 of 2
Despite hardly being the first name that springs to mind when cloud computing technology is mentioned, Dell looks set to successfully trademark the generic 'cloud computing' term after its formal application was published for opposition and nobody bothered to complain...
Dell is not the first to attempt to get trademark protection for the
term 'cloud computing' by a long chalk. That distinction would go to
the NetCentric Corporation which made its unsuccessful application way
back in 1998 before cloud computing as we understood it even existed.
It only took a year to kill off that particular
dead duck, but it does help draw attention to one thing: cloud computing as a
generic term has been around for a while. And that, says the
Industry Standard
is rather interesting.
Interesting because, according to its own research surrounding the
original Dell application which was dated March 23rd 2007, the Industry
Standard discovered that the New York Times was discussing cloud
computing in general terms as far back as 2001. Some six years before
the Dell application.
Writing on Slashdot,
Ian Lamont says that "A quick search of Google News indicates that Dell
itself did not use the term in press releases or discussions with
indexed English-language media sources from 1996 to 2006."
Curiouser, and curiouser.
Sam Johnston, meanwhile, did some digging and published his findings in
the
Google 'Cloud Computing' Group. He discovered that Dell did not
seem to be getting a trademark for its own variation of cloud computing
technology, but for the generic term itself.
The thing is, because nobody lodged any complaints during the formal
publication for opposition process, it looks like the mark is now
pending and likely to drop into the lap of Dell. well, it will at least
proceed to registration assuming that Dell can submit suitable examples
of its that is.
So what does this actually all mean? Does Dell now own the trademark to Cloud Computing and nobody else is allowed to play without its permsission? Read page 2 to find out...
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