The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Brian Gibbons:

> That's an interesting observation about the lack of First Novels among the last generation of Hugo winners. It rather confirms my own sense that as the state-of-the-art advances, the bar has been raised remarkably high.

I wouldn't consider this a reflection of ever-increasing quality of works, but more a reflection of ever-increasing numbers of books.

As more books get published (and particularly as the proportion of fandom grows of those who are fans of 'fandom' and not necessarily fans of reading SF), name recognition becomes more of a factor.

Other than Scalzi, it's worth noting that each other nominee has at least two previous Hugo nominated novels (with several also having previous Nebula or World Fantasy Award nominations, or Hugo nominations for shorter works).

It's debatable how much of a difference the "I haven't read many books this year, but so-and-so deserves a Hugo because I've always liked the type of books he writes" voters make, but I would find it difficult to argue that they don't have any effect. (Then again, that's the trade-off of a fan-based award, the flip side of "Well, her book might not be the best this year, but I really liked the job she did as an SFWA officer" of jury-run awards.)

> And the thing about trademark is that it can last forever. it has no expiration date. As long as it can be enforced by the holder, it remains their property.

Of course trademarks have an expiration date. The purpose of a trademark is to indicate the source of the products or services. If a name becomes generic, it effectively ceases to be a trademark.

That doesn't stop companies with such marks from trying to gently prod people who they think are using the name incorrectly (write a magazine article with uses Kleenex or Xerox as a generic noun for that type of product and you'll see what I mean), but it makes it unlikely that a company would seriously try to enforce their trademark (because that risks a court making a decision on the record that the mark is generic).

I've seen a couple of blogs that seem to think that this is something that Marvel/DC are just now trying to do. Everyone realizes that this is about a trademark registration that was granted back in 1981, right?

The only thing new in this discussion is a that comic-themed kids' science exhibit sponsored by Marvel describes itself as a "Marvel(r) Super Heroes(tm) Science Exhibition". Cory Doctorow seems to be bothered by that little (tm), which strikes me as being a bit overly sensitive.

It's not uncommon for companies to put a (tm) symbol on anything that's vaguely trademarkable, to the extent that most people don't even notice the symbols any more. Take a look at, say, a Pizza Hut or other large restaurant chain menu, and you'll be surprised at how many phrases they seem to be claiming as their own.

And why not? It doesn't cost them anything to add that little symbol, and if they ever do decide they want to enforce any rights in a name or phrase, having *not* used the symbol is likely to be brought up by someone who will claim he didn't know it was a trademark when he started using it.

I'll get in line for the outrage when Marvel/DC actually start threatening people for things I consider harmless. The fact that a Marvel-sponsored event uses the (tm) symbol, however, is so commonplace a trademark usage that it's unremarkable.

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