Someone at Fark has some serious chutzpah, according to ArsTechnica:
Fark is seeking exclusive rights over the phrase as it’s currently used across the Internet. Here’s what the trademark would cover, according to the application:
Entertainment Services namely providing a web site featuring photographic, audio, video and prose presentations featuring comedic captions regarding current events and online discussions and/or reviews of web materials of an adult nature; Entertainment services, namely, providing a web site featuring musical performances, musical videos, related film clips, photographs, and other multimedia materials; Entertainment services, namely, providing on-line reviews of photographs and/or web postings of an adult nature.
I thought that NSFW….er, I mean NSFW™….was one of those ubiquitous internet acronyms that exists throughout English-speaking net-space, outside perhaps of some under-18 and very religious venues.
While Despair was able to get away with trademarking the frownie-emoticon [ :-(™ ] due to the apparent limited scope of their application, I think Fark might be overreaching just a bit.
Trademork, which originally broke the story, helpfully offers a list of sites that use NSFW(™) in their names.
I’d provide links, but I’m trying to keep this site reasonably SFW, and safe from trademark battles. ;-)™
