The United States Patent and Trademark Office rejected Salesforce.com’s request to trademark the term, “social enterprise”—and the nonprofit Social Enterprise Alliance wants to make sure the agency doesn’t change its mind.

The alliance is calling on supporters to write letters supporting the trademark office’s denial of the application during its comment period, which ends September 9.

In the United States and around the world, tens of thousands of businesses whose primary goal is social or environmental good use the term social enterprise, says Kevin Lynch, chief executive of the Social Enterprise Alliance.

“If somebody gets a trademark on it, the ability of individual organizations to continue doing their work under the banner of social enterprise all of the sudden is very much diminished,” he says. “One private company could control the use of that phrase.�…

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