Lest anybody think that OCLC suing the Library Hotel is silly, keep in mind that it’s a trademark issue, and if they don’t sue, they lose the trademark. Also, the story linked above gives a mistaken impression: OCLC wasn’t looking for money from the hotel; they just needed a licensing agreement in hand to protect their trademark. Now that lawyers are involved, who knows what it will take to make it stop. I couldn’t find a link to the LJ Academic Newswire release below, so here’s the text:

OCLC: HOTEL FORCED IT TO SUE TO PROTECT TRADEMARK
If you think it’s absurd for the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) to sue the Library Hotel over its use of the Dewey Decimal System, lawyers for OCLC agree. Absurd, but unfortunately necessary. For three years, Joseph Dreitler, an attorney with the firm of Jones Day, representing OCLC, said OCLC attempted to get the Library Hotel to simply sign some form of agreement acknowledging that the hotel’s use of the Dewey Decimal System was granted by permission of OCLC. For the first two years they heard nothing, said Dreitler. Last year, however, The Library Hotel’s owner, Henry Kallan finally responded. “He basically told OCLC to get lost,” Dreitler told the LJ Academic Newswire. “All OCLC needed was a piece of paper they could put in their file,” he added. Dreitler says the OCLC has no objection to
the hotel’s use of the Dewey Decimal system, and was never seeking payment. But in trademark law, he said, trademarks must be vigorously defended or otherwise lost: “If a company that owns the rights to a trademark allows that
trademark to be used in such a way that it is no longer associated with their product, it is abandoned. This is not something OCLC wanted to do, but they had to do it to protect their trademark rights from such large-scale use. They were pushed against a wall.”

Dreitler stressed that it was never the intention of OCLC to seek a slice of the hotel’s profits nor prevent the hotel from using its clever theme. Now that lawyers are involved, he said it was not his place to comment on what
settlement his client seeks. But he reiterates that OCLC is open to settling, and remains at a loss to explain why the hotel never dealt with OCLC before the lawsuit was filed. “This could’ve and should’ve been resolved without
getting me involved,” he said. The Library Hotel has denied any wrongdoing and could not confirm whether Kallan refused to cooperate with OCLC requests. In a statement, hotel General Manager Craig Spitzer said that Kallan was traveling in Europe but would be happy to address reporters
upon his return.