Apparently comic conventions across America are having to change their name, following a bizarre and absurd legal ruling that “Comic Con” is a trademark and infringement can carry a $4m liability. Techdirt has the details.

Presumably similar legal fears, unfounded or not, will now cause all other ‘Cons’ to have to change the ‘Con’ bit of their names. Since the same legal arm-twisting could be tried on conventions other than those for comics. Necronomicon Providence should be safe though, as the -con there is part of another name, arising from fiction that’s in the public domain. Perhaps that’s the trick for conventions — find a new public-domain name that naturally ends in ‘con’ and is associated with your topic.