Monday, August 04, 2008

Dell gets "notice of allowance" for trademark on cloud computing

PCWorld/WashingtonPost discuss information on the USPTO site indicating that the trademark "cloud computing" has received a notice of allowance. The applicant is Dell Inc. of Round Rock, Texas.

The mark has serial number 77139082[TARR]. The class scope is described:

Design of computer hardware for use in data centers and mega-scale computing environments for others; customization of computer hardware for use in data centers and mega-scale computing environments for others; design and development of networks for use in data centers and mega-scale computing environments for others; Consulting services for data centers and mega-scale computing environments in the fields of design, selection, implementation, customization and use of computer hardware and software systems for others; Consulting services for data centers and mega-scale computing environments in the fields of design, selection, implementation, customization and use of computer hardware and software systems for others.

Wikipedia describes "cloud computing" as follows:

Cloud computing means Internet ('Cloud') based development and use of computer technology ('Computing'). It is a style of computing where IT-related capabilities are provided “as a service”[1], allowing users to access technology-enabled services[2] without knowledge of, expertise with, or control over the technology infrastructure that supports them[3]. It is a general concept that incorporates software as a service, Web 2.0 and other recent, well-known technology trends, where the common theme is reliance on the Internet for satisfying the computing needs of the users.

(...)

As customers generally do not own the infrastructure, they are mearly accessing or renting, they can forego capital expenditure and consume resources as a service, paying instead for what they use. Many cloud computing offerings have adopted the utility computing model which is analogous to how traditional utilities like electricity are consumed, while others are billed on a subscription basis. By sharing "perishable and intangible" computing power between multiple tenants, utilization rates can be improved (as servers are not left idle) which can reduce costs significantly while increasing the speed of application development. A side effect of this approach is that "computer capacity rises dramatically" as customers do not have to engineer for peak loads[8]. Adoption has been enabled by "increased high-speed bandwidth" which makes it possible to receive the same response times from centralized infrastructure at other sites.


Wikipedia also notes: The cloud computing "revolution" is being driven by companies like Google, Redhat[9], Salesforce and Yahoo! as well as traditional vendors including Hewlett Packard, IBM and Microsoft[10] and adopted by individuals through large enterprises including General Electric, L'Oréal and Valeo[11][12].

IPBiz notes that Dell is a member of the Coalition for Patent Fairness, and surmises that Dell might not be a member of any future Coalition for Trademark Fairness. Hewlett-Packard, a potential victim of Dell's trademark effort, is also a member of the Coalition for Patent Fairness. Leon Trotsky might admire the naming of groups such as the Coalition for Patent Fairness, but the groups are about economic interest, and not about fairness. When the Coalition for Patent Fairness could not achieve what it wanted on apportionment of damages, it walked away from "reform," showing its true colors. "Reform" was never about patent quality, and the "cloud computing" matter suggests it's not about trademark quality, either.

[Note IPBiz post:
CADC smokes FTC on Rambus; another Jaffe/Lerner argument blown away
]

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