Social networking darling Digg is in a spot of bother over the rights to use there own name (Digg) following action by Lucasfilm (producers of Star Wars) to block an application from Digg to register Digg as a trademark.
The application from Lucasfilm argues that Digg infringes on their existing trademark “The Dig”, a computer game launched by Lucasfilm in 1995.
It’s some what questionable as to whether Digg would be forced to stop using Digg as a trading name, but certainly not beyond the realms of possibility if Lucasfilm were successful in their opposition to the Digg trademark application and then sought to enforce it’s trademark by demanding that Digg stop using the name.
The real question though has got to be made to the VC firms that funded the company without checking the rights on the name to begin with, Omidyar Network and Greylock partners amongst them. The FIRST thing investors usually look for in a company is security of IP and naming rights, and yet it would appear at the time of funding that Kevin Rose and friends hadn’t successfully secured a trademark for the name of the company itself.
Originally posted on February 22, 2007 @ 6:50 pm