For a while Wordle has been a popular tag cloud generator, but it has recently come under attack for allegedly infringing on an existing trademark filed by Mark Koeff of California. Whilst I know very little about IP law, I'm fairly certain that for a trademark to be infringed it has to fall under the same category and the Wordle website does not fall under "Paper goods and printed material" so is unlikely to cause any sort of brand confusion either. I have a feeling if the plaintiff's claims make it to court they will be dismissed as soon as the filed trademark is brought up.
As you'd expect from the online community these days it has not taken long for the news to hit Twitter and has now started a #savewordle campaign which hopes to raise awareness for the creator's plight and hopefully an IP lawyer who can defend the site pro bono. It's good to see communities rallying around individual developers to defend them and I hope this is one battle which is won by Jonathan Feinberg and the community supporting him.
UPDATE: The Wordle website is back-up, and on the Wordle blog the author mentions that a lawyer is now helping him to resolve the issue - fingers crossed!
