Google Loses Gmail Trademark Case 293
amigoro writes "A court in Germany today banned Google from using the name 'Gmail' for its popular webmail service following a trademark suit filed by the founder of G-Mail. Daniel Giersch, started using the name G-Mail in 2000, four years before Google released 'Gmail'. "Google infringed the young businessman's trademark that had been previously been registered," said the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court in its judgement."
Legitimate Case? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Legitimate Case? (Score:5, Insightful)
What bothers me about this issue, though is the following:
"Google has announced, at least in writing, to 'fight' my client abroad for as long as it takes before he drops the legal claims lodged in Germany," Eble confirmed.
Re:Legitimate Case? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Google is just showing itself to be more and more the company that for marketing purposes it is pretending not to be, I wonder how many of his private details that fellow in Germany would be willing to ha
Re:Legitimate Case? (Score:5, Insightful)
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They actually use the phrase 'don't be evil'. The difference, as I see it, is that 'do no evil' paralyzes you when you have to choose among two evils; 'don't be evil' just makes sure that whatever evil you choose, you choose with the best intentions.
Of course, the road to hell and all that...
Re:Legitimate Case? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Legitimate Case? (Score:5, Informative)
UK can use gmail.com (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:Legitimate Case? (Score:4, Informative)
Google has filed lawsuits against Giersch in Spain, Portugal and Switzerland.
"Google has announced, at least in writing, to 'fight' my client abroad for as long as it takes before he drops the legal claims lodged in Germany," Eble confirmed. In other words, the case seems completely in the German fellow's favour, both from a common-sense point of view (G-Mail versus GMail, started using it four years earlier), and from a legal point of view (see the court decision quoted above), yet Google is still fighting the issue.
And? Giersch has proven that his trademark is valid in Germany. Google are within their rights to test it in neighbouring countries to determine whether whatever steps they need to do in Germany (e.g. call in "GoogleMail") also have to be done elsewhere. That in and of itself is not "evil".
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Well, yes, but I don't see the logic that other people should necessarily expect it. For example, a goal is a goal - you don't reach it until you get there. Supposedly, most of the time is spent in the journey/pursuit/whatever.
However...
> then you'd better hold yourself to a higher standard than those who make no such claim.
that isn't what you said. You said 'hold yourself to a higher standard', so that is quit
Re:Legitimate Case? (Score:5, Insightful)
Police officers should be held to a higher standard than the rest of us, since it is their duty to represent the law for the general public. They should lead by example, and therefore be MORE law abiding.
A dry cleaning company has to be held to a higher standard than a roommate doing you a favor, when it comes to doing laundry. This is because their business is based on guaranteeing and delivering that higher standard. If they do not provide it, they lose business and eventually are forced to close.
Any business that uses a promise to "do no evil" is therefore expected to shine the big "DO NO EVIL" floodlight all over anything they do to make sure that it isn't going to be seen as evil, or isn't in fact evil. They themselves have set that higher standard by which they are to be judged, by saying "We will do no evil. Really, take a good look. No eeEee-ville here."
Now, of course, evil is subjective, and all depends on which side of the line you live on. One man's good is another man's garbage. It's not like the Force though, for after a certain point the followers of the dark side know the evil which they do. Most people would agree that a large corporation obviously in the wrong that intends to use its finances to wear down the little guy in the right, is an "eeEee-ville" thing.
Re:Legitimate Case? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Legitimate Case? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Legitimate Case? (Score:5, Informative)
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No excuse.
Re:Legitimate Case? (Score:5, Interesting)
Something tells me they could have made an early offer that both parties would have been happy with - I mean, dude could make millions just by luck of naming something with a letter. But instead, Google just goes ahead with it and tries to fix it after the fact. Not necessarily evil, just crappy planning and then a desperate attempt to fix it.
I wonder if they even tried the carrot before they used the stick. Maybe they made an offer and the guy wanted more. No excuse for what they're doing, but I'm curious.
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FTA:
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Well, haven't we already learned that with Microsoft?
Re:Legitimate Case? (Score:5, Informative)
Quick link to why this is a traditional example:
http://nissan.com/Digest/The_Story.php [nissan.com]
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Try both; supposedly either one will reach your account. And both sites gmail.com and googlemail.com should reach your account to login. So I assume that your "@gmail.com" will be fine.
Plus it only applies to gmail.de unless Google feels like that's enough to redefine the whole GMail trademark globally. Either way, if you're concerned, start referring people to your email @googlemail.com.
Oh yeah, you'll probably want to set a filter for those "mailto"s...
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Re:Legitimate Case? (Score:4, Funny)
Actually I am wondering whether the word Beta is not a trademark registered by google
what now (Score:2)
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How about GoogleMail ?
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How about GoogleMail ?
Smart businessman (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:Smart businessman (Score:5, Insightful)
Syndicated advertisements existed long before Google
Syndicated news existed long before Google
Search engines existed before Google
Web mail of various kinds existed long before Google
Online versions of desktop applications existed before Google had them, albeit in a more simple form (limited by the technology at the time) e.g. yahoo calendar, yahoo notepad etc - The concept was there though.
Deja news was bought by google and turned into google groups
Online photos had existed long before google acquired picasa
They bought google earth and online maps existed long before
In summary,Google seems to copy or acquire and occasionally improve rather than innovate.
They are very good at marketing though, much like MS really:
Google were very lucky with viral marketing early on.
MS was lucky with IBM and DOS.
Google, to their credit have not lost focus on their bread and butter - search.
MS have never lost their focus on OSes and Office Applications
MS were heros until they got too big.
Hmmm...
Note: I am not against Google, but like any business, they would rip anyone off if they could get away with its so I never really understand this worshiping of businesses some geeks like to engage in.
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But I think the gmail.com addresses will still work, or I can just say I live in the US (oh the horrors!)
Major Suckage (Score:3, Insightful)
I personally use my gmail address for just about everything. It scares me to think about how long it would actually take to go around and change my email address on all the various services I use.
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Thanks for presenting the slash herd viewpoint. If you are interested in learning the truth about how these cases go down, talk to RIM, Inc. about how such cases get decided 'in America.'
Re:Major Suckage (Score:4, Funny)
]{
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Re:Major Suckage (Score:4, Informative)
Conveniently, you still receive bob@gmail.com email at your bob@googlemail.com address, so despite the interface branding you can just use the gmail.com as your published address if you wish. I don't see them changing the gmail interface globally in those countries they don't need to.
Name change? (Score:3, Informative)
G, Really? (Score:4, Interesting)
I would think that would fall into the whole imminent domain concept that they use to justify taking part of your property to build a strip mall or expand a road. Likewise, a billion dollars of business in your economy is more important to society than some piddly million dollar business using the same concept or trademark.
Sad, but . . . I think that might be in our future.
Re:G, Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm sure that someday the WTO will have something arranged so that the guy producing the most benefit from the trademark will win. If you came up with the trademark (or a copyrighted idea) twenty years ago and are using it to generate a million dollars in business per year, you have to surrender it to the bigger company who comes along and is making a billion dollars per year off of it.
And that would be good why, exactly?
Look, if my business is doing well, and earning say 2-3 millions a year in a local market. Assume it's a good product, the customers are happy, everything is fine. Assume that it's a product that relies on brand recognition.
Now along comes Giant Corporation Inc. with a similar-named product. It would nevertheless hurt my business considerably. You're saying that's ok and I and my customers have to suck it up simply because GCI is bigger?
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Yes. If your business generates only 0,1% of GCI's revenue with a similar product
Then what?
Your argument really is that money determines who gets a right and who doesn't? Maybe my oxyen and water consumption isn't less effective than Joe Rich's, so you're going to terminate my living license next?
That's how the world works - the weak perish, only the strong survive.
Actually, you don't understand Darwin. It's not the strong who survive, it's the most adaptable. But that's another topic.
What this is about is Trademark Law. Now you can argue for it to be completely abolished and maybe we can even agree there. But if we accept trademark law, then it can not
iMail? (Score:3, Funny)
Where? (Score:3, Interesting)
This doesn't actually affect anyone who uses Gmail (Score:3, Informative)
Do no evil???? (Score:2, Insightful)
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By fighting this guy who is a much smaller player when they knew perfectly well he had a solid case.
Costs? (Score:2)
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Your Own Email (Score:5, Insightful)
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Ironically, you can have Google [google.com] do this for you. So you can have the "best" web client. If you so choose, you could also have it hosted here [microsoft.com] and have the worst. :-
A Race to the Trademark Office (Score:2)
And yes, Google is completely wrong -- and evil -- here!
Where are the trolls? (Score:4, Funny)
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In that case, the older and smaller company "lost" and had to change its name, on the basis that it would be too expensive for a company as large as the "new" "Deutsche Telekom" to change its name again -- BUT, the
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From The Fine Article, and indeed The Fine Summary, it is pretty obvious the guy wasn't just trolling for copyrightable names, and hoping that one day, four years into the future, a large corporation would adopt one of his brands as a name for a flagship product. Not to mention that the "G" probably refers to his name (Girsch-Mail any less catchy?), but also Google clearly thought it was a unique enough name that they would be able to
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Re:sort of makes me wish (Score:5, Funny)
Re:sort of makes me wish (Score:5, Funny)
I keep getting spam for new furniture and chair repair...
--
Steve.Ballmer@gmail.com
Re:sort of makes me wish (Score:5, Funny)
richard.stallman@gmail.com
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Carlos.Slim@gmail.com
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While we are talking about it, I would like for everyone that is reading this to quite using my account to sign up for services. This acco
Re:sort of makes me wish (Score:5, Funny)
Re:sort of makes me wish (Score:5, Funny)
There. You're welcome.
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Re:sort of makes me wish (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:sort of makes me wish (Score:5, Funny)
Re:sort of makes me wish (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:sort of makes me wish (Score:4, Interesting)
I suspect I could do a little more with auto blacklisting of mail servers and such things but haven't got around to it yet
I also find it rather amusing to give that address to companies over the phone when they can't give me a sensible reason for wanting my email address (ie its purely for "marketing purposes")
Re:Trademarking a letter is ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
In trademarks, they are never trademarking only parts of the name, but the full name. Google is not trademarking "G", but "Gmail". They can't trademark "mail", but again, it's the full sequence of letters that is.
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They don't always win ... (Score:2, Interesting)
I think you will find that McDonalds has pursued several high-profile lawsuits against companies who dare to put the prefix "Mc" on their name.
Yes, but they don't always win.
See: http://www.lawyersweekly.com.au/articles/26/0C0439 26.asp?Type=53&Category=853 [lawyersweekly.com.au]
Basically, a guy named McBratney sponsored a rugby team, and put his nickname 'McBrat' on the team shorts. McDonalds took offense at that, but unfortunately for them, McBratney is an IP lawyer who had a good case.
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They may be applying for a trademark for Gmail now, but don't be the person who trademarks the gPhone or gCar or gSearch. They may decide to go into that market and then sue you on the basis that it MIGHT confuse the customer and the courts take it away.
It is just too easy to abuse the courts and the laws. I don't if Google has to pay millions of dollars to buy the trademark in every country in the world. If it were that obvious then maybe they should try a little harder to find an actual unique tradem
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A windows cleaner service won't be put in a legal minefield with Microsoft, for example.
Sometimes these lines are blurred, and sometimes companies intentionally try to cross these lines, but I doubt Apple would be able to get a lawsuit of an apple store through.
One example that became a real case in court was the Apple Corps vs Apple one, but in that case it was because both shared a field of business (music entertainment)
Re:Trademarking a letter is ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember that trademarks are restricted to a line of business. Apple can be used to sell computers [apple.com], vacations [applevacations.com], and music without any problem (at least until the first Apple started selling music!). I doubt any of those companies would be successful in shutting down a grocery seller using the name apple (barring other factors that might confuse consumers).
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Re:Close it down! (Score:4, Insightful)
That is not how it works. The guy owns the trademark and Google is infringing. There is also no appeal, because the case is obvious. The only way for Google to get this resolved is to convince the trademark-owner. Public opinion and/or pressure does not play any role here.
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There are enough abuses already in the patent and trademark areas without adding a rule that states simply that the bigger your company the more rights you have.
There was recently a case in the UK where The Tan Hill Inn, which is apparently
Re:Close it down! THAT'S WHAT THEY SAID ABOUT... (Score:2)
That's what they said about the immigration bill in the United States Senate too.
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Tactics like this don't work in the real world. That would be nothing short of a publicity nightmare for Google and would force people in other countries to seriously question whether they should be relying on such a service. Do you honestly think that the peo
Re:Close it down! (Score:5, Funny)
And if I were the entire automotive industry, I'd refuse to do business in California!
Re:Close it down! (Score:4, Insightful)
For starters, Germany is the export world record holder. Its 80 million people are one of the most important markets on this planet. It is also one of the leading countries of the European Union, the largest and most profitable economy around.
You don't walk away from that market, unless you have an (economic) suicide wish and want to be fired by your shareholders.
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What the hell does iGoogle even mean? I stopped using it the moment they changed the name, it bothered me that much. (the little i thingy is also why I have never bought anything from Apple that started with an i... I have a Mac Mini, though -- even though I despise the OS. Thank $genericReligiousOverlordHere for rEFIt [sf.net])
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