There's certainly enough been written on this, and by people far better informed than me (check out Rob's great post, or Mathew's, for more on that) but for the record, I certainly get why O'Reilly's management company would try to protect their mark and agree with the logic of Battelle's response.
Was the way it was handled silly? Yup, a PR disaster waiting to happen. And happen it did. Do they really have a right to these words as they relate to a conference? Heck, I don't know. Didn't we fight this battle years ago with "Xerox"? I mean, these types of things get fought about all the time. That's for the lawyers (and depending what they say, we will likely change how we describe mesh in future).
But in principle, I'm with the theory of protecting the mark, in the context given, if it's theirs. If not, why ever invest in creating something that develops meaning, which is in and of itself valuable?
