Dell Trademark: Cloud Computing:
There is something broken in the trademark process when a company can get a mark on a term of art that is already well established. Dell filed this application in March of 2007 when “cloud computing” was already in use. For instance, by simply googling for “cloud computing 2006” the first result is an article in ZDNet that has “cloud computing” in the headline. As several blog posts point out, a previous application by someone else had been rejected in 1998. Furthermore, as the timeline on the application shows most of the real work on this occured in early 2008 when usage of the term was taking off. The term was published for opposition as late as April of 2008 when already many other companies were using the term commercially. Not surprisingly none of these companies protested – who would even think to check that such a widely used term might be in the process of being trademarked by someone else?
