Off Topic: Searching For Myself

I was reading an article recently that pointed out how a certain company had registered terms and phrases related to homesteading in urban situations as trademarks. The article spelled out how a number of cease and desist letters had been sent to bloggers and other authors using their trademarked terms, and how legal action was actually possible under these circumstances. There was even some controversy, as the terms are apparently common enough that numerous bloggers were using them, and a book had actually been published some 10 years ago with one of those terms in the title!

I had never really thought about the idea of trademarking, especially since almost no one reads my blog. I didn't even really consider the fact that perhaps the term "Stealth Farming" was clever or original. After all, the revelation of the Stealth Bomber in the days of my youth was such a dramatic one that in my generation's lexicon almost anything done secretly or even quietly was referred to as being done in "stealth mode". This article made me think, "Is this movement so widespread that I need to think about a copyright, or even a registered trademark?"

Naturally, all I could do next is a little research to see if the term "Stealth Farming" was actually original. So I visited a few search engines and found that maybe it is! The majority of results from that search were related to the kind of video games where you build your own world, and the farming was actually more of a code word for stealing. I was lead to a few blogs that were similar to my own, where "stealth" and "farming" were used in the same post, but not as a term in and of itself. Oddly, though many blogs were displayed and many of them were from this very same blog-hosting service, mine did not come up in any search engine (but that is an issue for another time). Perhaps my name is original after all!

Mr. Farmer thinks registering a trademark is a good idea. After all, there are a number of blogs like mine out there, and this country continues to grow in population. The more realistic sustainability movement is overtaking the pie-in-the-sky "green" movement on a daily basis. Additionally, this current weak economy is driving folks to creativity regarding how to stay afloat until this passes. Americans are endlessly creative and determined people. Adapting to the changes in the world by combining old technology with new- and combining agriculture with the need to house large numbers of people in limited space- might just be the way of the future. Maybe we won't even need to do it in stealth by the time my grandchildren are on their own. Until then, I'll be keeping the term Stealth Farming. Don't expect a cease and desist letter any time soon, though.

Stealth Pig???