Dell loses bid to lay claim to term 'cloud computing'

It was a good try, but Dell's attempt to trademark the term, 'cloud computing', did not pass muster with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Gaining rights to the term would have been a marketing boon for Dell, which still has the right to appeal. 'Cloud computing' is the term widely used by numerous other companies to describe large-scale, hosted computing systems and web-based services.

Dell described cloud computing as the "custom manufacture of computer hardware for use in data centers and mega-scale computing environments for others." The trademark office ruled Dell's claim on the term was not specific enough to warrant a trademark.

"Registration is refused because the applied-for mark merely describes a feature and characteristic of applicant's services," the USPTO said in its ruling. "In addition to being merely descriptive, the applied-for mark appears to be generic in connection with the identified services, and therefore incapable of functioning as a source-identifier for applicant's services."

For more on this 'cloud computing' dispute:
- see this vnunet.com article