I applaud Drysdale's initiative, and I'm sure the $17K she spent will reap rewards for her in her industry for a long time. But... it was probably a wasted effo

I applaud Drysdale's initiative, and I'm sure the $17K she spent will reap rewards for her in her industry for a long time. But... it was probably a wasted effort. At least as far as preserving the generic use of the term "SEO," and certainly for Drysdale personally, except for the attendant acclaim she'll gain. To be clear, registering a mark with the USPTO does give a business tons of advantages. Most obviously, it gives notice to others that the business considers the mark part of their identity, and it makes enforcing the their exclusivity to the mark easier. But registration isn't a slam dunk, and in this case I would wager a case of nice Scotch that the mark "SEO," even if registered, would basically be unenforceable. Here's why. Without getting bogged down in too much detail, above all else, trademarks must be DISTINCTIVE. There's a whole framework setup the creates four categories of distinctiveness (from least to most): Generic, Descriptive, Suggestive, and Arbitrary/Fanciful. The framework comes from this case: http://bit.ly/bNw3pp http://bit.ly/bNw3pp Generic marks are never valid as marks because they aren't distinctive enough to ever serve as part of a business's identity. If they were valid, we'd eventually cede the exclusive use of our entire language to mark owners. "Piano" is the textbook example of a generic term. Descriptive marks are only valid once they've acquired an association with a particular company in the marketplace. "Red Piano" would be a descriptive term as applied to red pianos, and if a company came to be known at THE supplier of red pianos in the marketplace, the mark would probably be valid. Suggestive marks are immediately valid assuming no one else has already established a confusingly similar mark. "Lovely Ivory" would be a suggestive term as applied to Pianos. Suggestive marks require some flight of the imagination to relate them to the goods they are fixed to. Arbitrary/Fanciful marks are also immediately valid subject to the same limitations as suggestive terms. "Crap Sandwich" would be an arbitrary term as applied to Pianos. There is no connection between the mark and the goods. [I've laid out a more in depth description of this framework here: http://bit.ly/bVxbv1 http://bit.ly/bVxbv1 ] Applying the framework to the acronym "SEO" and the phrase "SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION" as it applies to the SEO services, both are generic terms because they are the label for an entire genre of services. Without some modifier that makes the term descriptive, SEO could never carry the distinctiveness necessary to describe an SEO firm. If the mark holder ever tried to enforce the mark "SEO", it would be at their own peril because it would never pass this test. I will say that the $17K spent now probably saved the SEO industry some nuisance cease and desist letters and probably saved some cash for the first person that Jason Gambert opted to sue over use of the mark (it would have also been the last). In that regard Drysdale kinda fell on her sword for the greater good, however certain a favorable outcome may have been. Either way, glad it's settled. :)