Trademark SEO?

In early April Sarah Bird, General Counsel to Seattle based blog SEOmoz, was working on some trademarks when she unearthed something interesting. A man named Jason Gambert had applied to trademark the term "SEO" and if you have never heard of Jason Gambert don't worry because no one else has ever heard of him either.

Gambert is an unknown in the Online Marketing community. In fact if you searched Google for his name before April 1st you would have found nothing, however now a search for his name results in multiple articles and the website jasongambert.com. Jason claims on his site that the reason he is trying to trademark the term is so he may force regulations and processes on the SEO community, but he assures people through his site that he will not be the only one to dictate the new rules of SEO.Below is a quote taken directly from his website.

"While SEO as a process has plenty of processes suggested throughout the community, there is no "approved" process by any governing body. Because the Search community has no approved SEO process, the industry has been riddled with used car salesmen, con-artists and rip-offs, resulting in a black-eye within the industry, and thousands of ripped off businesses throughout the country. We can change this with the SEO trademark."

He goes on to say...

"My goal in owning the trademark for the word SEO is not to try to force people to change their SEO process, but rather, prevent companies from selling "SEO" as a service under false pretenses."

To Jason's credit he is correct, in fact I have expressed my outrage with Online Marketers who use shady tactics in this very blog, but unfortunately he has gone about his crusade in the wrong way. There are a few very reputable groups online which fight to uphold the ethics of SEO, and instead of working with one of these groups Jason has the audacity to believe he has the keys to clean up SEO with or without the support of the community he claims he cares so much about.

To find out more about Jason's crazy crusade go to "Gambert Strikes Back!!"