So CMP and O’Reilly trademark “Web 2.0” for use on conferences and events. The blogosphere erupts in outrage at this and how they are going about sending a C&D notice to an Irish non-profit. While CMP seems to have legal ground to stand on here, obviously on a PR level they didn’t handle it well.

But I have to wonder: why bother trademarking Web 2.0 for conference/event use at all? By the time the mark gets approved, Web 2.0 as a term will probably be viewed as quaint, irrelevant, “oh so 2006”. Seriously, does anyone see the O’Reilly “Web 2.0 Conference” still being called that (to it’s face at least) in 2–3 years? By then Web 3.0 will be all the rage, or some other hot term du jour will be taking the Valley by storm and we’ll look at anything called Web 2.0 and sneeringly ask “that was that whole AJAX thing, wasn’t it?”

Of course, someone probably has already put in for the event trademark on Web 3.0…and 4.0…