By now, you've heard of the ice Bucket challenge, and you're aware that it's a very worthy cause, but you might not now that the guys behind the ALS charity didn't actually invent it.
Despite that, they still want to copyright it so that no other charities can use it to raise money for themselves, which has been happening around the world and helped charities like the IMNDA in particular over here.
According to ArsTechnica, the initiative has seen ALS raise nearly $100 million since July, compared to $2.7 million in the same period last year, so it has been a massive success, but their move to trademark something that they haven't invented is not being well received.
Trademark lawyer Erik Pelton, who spotted the claim by the ALS group said that it is similar to those groups who tried to trademark 'Boston Strong' after the bombing of the marathon: "Even if it were permissible under the law to register the phrase (again that is not clear here), it is in poor taste."
The real problem for the ALS group is that they have not invented the trend, and while they claim that the first of their efforts, which took place on August 4th, was the real 'Ice Bucket Challenge', some digging from Slate reporter Josh Levin found that this video from Instagram user standupguy06, which dates back to May, is one of, if not the fist effort.
They may face an uphill battle in order to get other people to stop using the phrase given how viral it has gone, but we get the feeling it might have had it's time in the spotlight by now.
Via ArsTechnica
