Property, intangible

To quote the World Trademark Review:

It is foolish in the extreme to ever underestimate the power of a passionate online community; if you do, what may seem like a minor blip in your trademark strategy could turn into a formidable obstacle should you come up against a cleverly-orchestrated and very determined campaign.

I’m very excited to be going to Gothenburg, Sweden to attend and speak at GUADEC 2015, the GNOME conference. In “How the Power of Community Prevails — It’s Not Only About the Code,” I will be speaking on a little fun we had about eight months ago, where the GNOME community — the “passionate online community” mentioned above — stopped a trademark threat dead in its tracks through a brilliantly-executed social media campaign. The tale will be told.