[brandon_wirtz]

You can trademark anything that isn't already trademarked, but you have to defend the trademark if you want to enforce the trademark.

Trademarks are a lot like patents, the due diligence when filing is on the filer for the most part. The agency only checks against the filings. So you can get a trademark for Hackathon, but if you tried to enforce it you would lose if there are prior uses by others.

You could get a Trademark in an alternate context. Like if you decided to combine a marathon with a machete and have a run through the jungle. That could be a new use for Hackathon that would be unlikely to cause confusion in the market.

That said I'm sure they will send some C&D's and scare some people in to not using the term.

The "Hon" trademark for a Baltimore restaurant springs to mind. Where the owner tried to extract money from the city of Baltimore, but she ended up dropping the trademark after community backlash.

[pbhjpbhj]

>You can trademark anything that isn't already trademarked //

That's absolutely wrong in the UK and USA. In Germany their English language guidance notes say:

"The following are also excluded from registration: promotional statements, general advertising slogans and word sequences that have become customary in the current language as fixed expression."

So it's wrong there too.

>"the due diligence when filing is on the filer for the most part"

In some jurisdictions but by no means all.

I'm surprised there were no oppositions filed, guess TM registrations are off most peoples radars. Of course the TM lacks distinctiveness and so is probably going to be struck down, doesn't stop them wielding it as part of a shakedown though.

[Sakes]

Ya, the "Hon" trademark was ridiculous. I think I saw that on kitchen nightmares. I could see a similar backlash happening over hackathon.

If that happened in the states I'd definitely boycott someone trying to own something that belongs to the community.