Adobe has trademarked AIR. Yes, according to James Whittaker, creator of the freshAIRapps.com directory, Adobe has delivered a legal letter laying claim to the three-character noun in all its capitalized, Helvetica-bound form. (Or is it set in Gotham type?)
The company’s position can be summarized in a single sentence:
"You may not incorporate the Adobe AIR trademark, or any other Adobe trademark, in whole or in part, in the title of your Developer Application or in your company name, domain name or the name of a service related to Adobe AIR."
Allen Stern of CenterNetworks first signified the frank absurdity of Adobe’s letter pertaining to the freshAIRapps domain, which I second. Adobe may certainly lay claim to its full trademark. But requesting the removal of a domain with AIR alone in its name strikes me as venturing past any reasonable bounds.
Might Adobe be sensing that the “AIR” graphic within the freshAIRapps as too similar to its own? Or is Adobe hedging its words on the fact that it shows the AIR title with a trademark label independent of the Adobe name? Regardless, a closure of freshAIRapps as it stands today seems unjust. Surely this is not the final word on the matter.