I won’t step deply into it (far too many people have stepped awfully deep into it that’s fur sur!) so I will simply say that I was pleased to notice that Apress’s IP lawyer Karen Frank (along with another noted IP lawyer, lonn Levy) were both quoted in Red Herring article today as essentially saying that anyone who thinks this is a valid “service mark” in May of 2006 when there are > 70,000,000 Google hits; thus clearly showing the (now) descriptive nature of the term, apparently need a quick refresher course in IP law. More precisely, here’s a telling excerpt from the Red Herring article :

“The fact that they may the first people to use it and it has caught on so much, I don’t think that’s going to do it,” added Karen S. Frank, a partner with Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin in San Francisco.
Trademarks are less thoroughly scrutinized than patents, Mr. Levy and Ms. Frank noted, so it’s possible the CMP application has slid through the USPTO without the analysis of someone familiar with the industry.
Though the trademark seems to be on the road to approval, both lawyers said it would be an easy target for cancellation or litigation.

Of course, given the cost of litigation in these United States, this silly trademark, like the silly patents that Tim so loves to rail against, would require someone with very deep pockets being interested enough to get it cancelled.