Comments on: Meet The 25-Year-Old Who Saved “SEO” From Being Trademarked

By: Nathan727

Nathan727 — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:06:39 +0000

Congratulations to Rhea Drysdale. It was truly worth the effort. Thanks to you, we all have to benefits the fruits of your hard work. Hats off! I’m sure that all the rest of the SEO companies will be indirely grateful to you.

By: Jon

Jon — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:34:01 +0000

Regardless of what happens from here, Rhea’s efforts will not have been wasted. The level of awareness and support generated in the SEO community today has been worth it alone.

If the fight does go on, there will now be a whole bigger team on the “good” side of the battle.

By: Stupidscript

Stupidscript — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:27:54 +0000

Thanks, Rhea.

That being said, the actual result was that the patent supplicant failed to provide procedural documents to the opposing party in a manner prescribed by the court. That’s it. There has been no ruling on the application aside from that. This is not settled in any meaningful way, and Gambert could simply begin his quest to register SEO all over again, because there is no legal basis to dissuade him.

IF the trademark office had agreed with Jonathan Hochman’s position (or anything related to prior art or any other number of legally valid grounds), AND they had rejected the application based on those grounds, then we would have cause to rejoice.

But, as it stands, the fight WILL go on, as there has been NO decision made in this issue, and it still may turn out that the time and money Ms. Drysdale has spent on this will have been wasted due to the filing of a new effort to apply this trademark, and a resumption of the legal battle.

Hopefully, she is willing to pick up again with the next attempt. Otherwise, who’s left?

By: Duane Forrester

Duane Forrester — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:51:41 +0000

First off, Rhea’s 25?! WOW! That explains her perpetually youthful look. :)

Seriously, though, Rhea – thanks. It’s moves like yours that are making a big difference for folks in the industry, whether they are paying attention or not!

By: Davor Bomestar

Davor Bomestar — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:32:21 +0000

Thank you Rhea, Jonathan and others who were a part of this. And of course SELand for letting us know about this.
It motivates me when I see how much just one persistent person can accomplish.

By: Winooski

Winooski — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:50:14 +0000

Thanks Jonathan, and a HUGE thanks to Rhea for her tenacity and integrity. Count me among the folks who’d contribute to a fund to defray her legal costs.

By: Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:37:10 +0000

Ah, thanks for clarifying Jonathan.

By: Jonathan Hochman

Jonathan Hochman — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:20:26 +0000

Clarification: my opposition was not abandoned. We filed a brief requesting a decision that as a matter of law, SEO is a generic term that cannot be trademarked by anybody. For whatever reason our request was refused and our opposition was dismissed. Rhea took a different approach and was successful.