In the general run of the mill business world trademarks make sense but when it comes to the web company world it seems like no-one has any sense at all.
According to the Fusible blog Zynga has decided that it wants to pull a Facebook move (remember the whole idea around trying to trademark “Face”) and has applied in Europe for a trademark for the word “Ville”.
I mean seriously. Trademarking “Ville”. C’mon how arsine is that.
On March 1, 2011, Zynga filed for a trademark on the word: ville. The trademark was filed with theOffice for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM), the official trade marks and designs office of the European Union.
Zynga’s trademark representative is Rouse, a specialist in international IP business whose client list ranges from Honeywell and BP to Christian Dior and Starbucks Coffee.
I don’t care how many millions that Zynga is making from cartoonish copies of other games the idea of trademarking an everyday word like “ville” is just plain stupid and only goes to show how mind numbingly stupid this whole trademarking thing is when it comes to the web.