…Alive enough to send lawyers my way, anyhow.

The original domain name for this blog included the words “Steorn” and “Orbo”. When Steorn made it clear in their forums last year that they don’t approve of domain names that include their trademarks, I changed this site’s domain to dispatchesfromthefuture.com. I stopped promoting the original domain and turned it into a redirect leading to the new domain, so that existing links wouldn’t just go dead. I figured I’d leave things that way unless and until Steorn expressed disapproval.

Well that finally happened this week. I received an e-mail from the international law firm Seyfarth Shaw LLP asking that I turn over the domain to Steorn. Here’s an excerpt from the letter:

This firm has been retained by Steorn, Ltd. (“Steorn”) to protect its trademarks and domain names. Steorn is the owner of U.S. Trademark Reg. No. 3,386,304 and U.S. Trademark Reg. No. 3,382,850 for STEORN, dating back to at least as early as 2001, for technological services including research design and development in the field of energy systems, as well as technology consultancy advice and analysis in the field of energy systems. Steorn is the owner of U.S. Trademark Reg. No. 3,379,126 for ORBO for similar use. STEORN and ORBO are collectively referred to as the “Marks.”

I’ll be happy to hand over the domain name, and would have been even without the scary threats of enormous fines that they were thorough enough to include. But I’m even happier to see that Steorn is still alive and well enough to care about their “energy systems”-related trademarks. Here’s hoping “Orbo” has a future as more than just a name.