An Unlikely Attempt to Trademark SEO - A Trademark Timeline
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Let's take a trip down memory lane. The term “search engine optimization” is at least 11 years old, according to Danny Sullivan. He documented its use in a spam message to a Usenet group on July 26, 1997. The term “SEO” made it into Wikipedia in late February of 2003. It's worth noting that the article describes SEO as both a process and a marketing service; Jason Gambert tried to trademark the latter use of the term.
Gambert didn't file his first attempt at registration of the “SEO” mark until May 2, 2007. Of the filing, which covers a broad range of relevant goods and services, Bird says that “It's pretty clear what this man's intention was. He was trying to own SEO and he was trying to own it for search engine optimization and other related internet marketing areas.” He could have then scared off a lot of people with Cease and Desist letters.
Fortunately, the Trademark Office rejected the application on August 15, 2007. They must have been underwhelmed by his statement that the first use of the term SEO to occur anywhere was “At least as early as 02/14/2007.” Heck, I was using the term before then, and I just write about it!
Undeterred, Gambert tried again on September 19, 2007. He took the knowledge he gleaned from the Trademark Office's objection to his earlier application and tried to narrow the scope of the mark to cover “Direct marketing services for others in the field of computers. Search engine marketing. Domain name.” He also tried to turn SEO into something other than a generic acronym for search engine optimization; he claimed that it refers to “System Efficient Optimization in the relevant trade or industry.” He also added to his application between September 22, 2007 and January 2008 by using online dictionaries to prove his argument that SEO is understood to be a “process,” and that he wants to use the mark “for a service not a process.”
The Trademark Office still didn't buy it, and rejected the application for the second time on January 2, 2008. Not only did the reviewer point out that SEO is still a descriptive term the way Gambert is using it, but added that Gambert did not even show that he was actually using the mark in commerce!
At this point, Gambert submitted “a bitter and confusing response” to the rejection, according to Bird. I chose not to reproduce it in full here; it's long, and the editor in me would rebel at having to reproduce that much gibberish. Basically he claims that the words “search engine optimization” have no real linguistic English value beyond being a process; that he's trying to trademark a service; and that SEO itself is Net lingo and has no “Official English linguistic value.” This stellar performance earned Gambert his third rejection from the Trademark Office, on January 8.
Unfortunately, the way the Trademark Office phrased its rejection opened the door for Gambert to revise his application in a way that it might be accepted. This may be a real-life example of that old saw: if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BS. It almost looks as if the reviewing attorney was worn down and just wanted to get rid of him, or as Bird put it, “she basically gave up and said, 'Hey. If he says he's doing direct marketing and not SEO, then who am I to say otherwise?'” After Gambert provided a specimen, publication was scheduled for March 25, 2008.
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