Tim O'Reilly responded to the Web 2.0 trademark kerfuffle today, and it's a good response. I'll highlight one piece to make a point:

CMP let us know recently that they were worried about potential dilution of the conference brand by other companies putting on Web 2.0 related conferences using the same name, and I agreed with them that it was an issue that we needed to deal with. I was not aware, however, that CMP intended to send out cease and desist letters to anyone in the short term, let alone to a non-profit organization with whom I'd previously corresponded about the event they were putting on. (Gina Blaber, the head of our conference team, was aware of the letter, however, and approved it, and that's why Sara Winge, in her postings, did not disclaim O'Reilly's responsibility.)

At this point, lawyers are in the PR business as well as the legal business. I'm sure they don't like that - it's not something they aimed for, any more than PR people aimed for law. Be that as it may, that's the way it is. The mistake here was in PR terms - CMP's lawyers did exactly what Warner Kremer Paino did when they sued Lance Dutson - they created a negative PR event. Sure, there are difference. CMP has a valid trademark, and they sent a letter rather than a lawsuit.

In PR terms, none of that matters. The end result is, they made O'Reilly look bad, and did potential harm to the business. Tim states that people piled on prematurely, and that may well be the case. I'd argue that CMP's lawyers prematurely sent their letter as well. Not on legal grounds, but on PR grounds. It used to be that PR and marketing had to run things by legal first, to check for potential trouble. Now it runs the other way as well. I'm not sure that Tim fully gets that, because he states:

Just to be clear, neither CMP or O'Reilly is claiming the right to all use of the term Web 2.0, as some of the posters assert. We just want to keep other conference companies from putting on on events that trade on the name and concept that we created. And don't tell me it's not possible to have a Web 2.0-related conference without using Web 2.0 in the name! Microsoft's Mix 06, Google's Zeitgeist, the Ajax Experience -- these are all web 2.0-related conferences that don't use the name.

The question he's got to ask himself is, was the standard legal treatment of a cease and desist letter worth the PR nightmare it caused? I think a phone call to IT@Cork first, followed by a letter if that had been unsatisfactory, would have worked a whole lot better. It's a new ballgame out there for PR - and if O'Reilly wants to surf the Web 2.0 wave, he's got to deal with that reality.