Verbing Weirds Google 856
MoNickels writes "Back in January, the American Dialect Society voted the neologism "to google" as the most useful word of 2002. Now bring on the lawyers! Google's have sent a cease-and-desist letter to Paul McFedries, creator of the famous Word Spy site, demanding he remove google as a verb from his lexicon, or else. Frank Abate, an American editor for the Oxford English Dictionary, points out, however, that you can't claim proprietary rights to a verb." Update: 02/26 03:19 GMT by T : MoNickels writes with an update: "Frank Abate is not
an editor of the OED, but he is a former editor of the New Oxford
American Dictionary, both published by Oxford University Press." Thanks for the amendment!
Isn't google a number? (Score:0, Interesting)
Thought Google was supposed to be a "good" company (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Isn't google a number? (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't see 'google' as a generic word for 'web search', like 'xerox' is 'to copy'. 'To google' means 'to go to google.com'.
Bleh (Score:4, Interesting)
On the other hand, unlike the situation with Nintendo, no one can take google's domain name. If google does become a term meaning "to search the internet with an effective relevancy calculator" then their domain name will always be synonymous.
Personally, though, I say screw google. They put autopr0n on the 11th page on a search for "autopr0n", which doesn't make any damn sense. And no one is ever going to say "Let me Alltheweb for it."
This is a trademark issue. (Score:1, Interesting)
yes, no "or else" there at all (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:On ER... (Score:3, Interesting)
Use as a verb is step towards generic (Score:5, Interesting)
They actually sent a cease and desist because use as a verb is clear signs that a trademark is becoming (or has become) generic. See TMEP 1209.01(c) [uspto.gov]. As such, another party can use that as a defense if Google tries to claim trademark infringement. So I'm not surprised they sent the cease & desist and would have done the same thing.
Anybody recall the Xerox ad of a few years ago... "There are two R's in XEROX(r) "? The whole purpose of that ad was to get people to realize that a) XEROX is a trademark and b) to stop using it as a verb (i.e., "I xeroxed this article for my friend") which causes it to lose its trademark status.
Trademarks, though a form of intellectual property, are more about consumer protection than about restricting people from using certain words.
-A
Re:Spam vs spam, and Google vs google (Score:2, Interesting)
If I were to publish a popular "dictionary of lunch jargon" and included "to spam" as a generic term for eating salty ham-derived food, you can bet your ass Hormel's lawyers would be sending me a C&D letter.
Re:The English Language has nouns as well! (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry, no - the noun is googol.
"Google" comes from a pun on googol and a contraction of "Go ogle".
-T
Re:never work - But it must (Score:3, Interesting)
You can trademark what is in common usage, as long as the usage does not have anything to do (within reason) with what you're using the trademark to refer to.
Thus, Microsoft's trademark of "Windows" does not in any way stop Andersen from using the term in conjunction with their glass products. The question would still remain, however, as to whether "windows" in the computing sense (ie boxes on screen with text and/or graphics within them that are movable and so forth...) renders the term untrademarkable in that environment.
But, if I wanted to launch a new candy bar, I could call it Windows, and even trademark that term within the limited domain of "food products".
Do domain names make trademarks obsolete? (Score:3, Interesting)
IMHO, this is a typical case of a laywer being too trigger-happy to appreciate the big picture. If I owned google.com, widespread use of the term "google" would be music to my ears, trademarks be damned.
Re:Redifference between uppercase and lowercase (Score:4, Interesting)
But maybe they fear that something happens to them like to Xerox. If "to google" becomes a common word, maybe then their trademark would be worthless? Next, someone sets up googler.com and defends itself by purporting that "googler" cannot breach a trademark more than "searcher".
I don't know
Re:Redifference between uppercase and lowercase (Score:2, Interesting)
The example he used was that "Ford" is the motor company, but "ford" is a part of a stream that you can walk across, and "to ford" is to walk across a stream.
Thus implying that there is some other meaning of the word "ford" which can be verbed.
The way you read it, it would imply that "to ford" means to drive a car, therefore "to google" can mean "to find on the Internet."
(BTW, "Internet" is supposed to be uppercase, as your better spell-checkers will inform you. It's not a noun, it's a proper name for a specific network.)
Re:Trademarks and loss of trademarks (Score:5, Interesting)
Apparently you didn't read the linked article [linguistlist.org] (it's okay - not the first time on Slashdot, and won't be the last).
Verb usage is specifically exempted from US trademark law. So while it is true that Google would have to sue to prevent dilution of its trademark in the case of other "Google sites" or "Google services", when it comes to "googling" (esp. as in the current case, that is, dictionary, word, and usage tracking) they have no legal leg to stand on.
Google on, friends.
-renard
Freakin Lawyer logic... (Score:2, Interesting)
Name recognition is certainly important, and the ease of *finding* that business on the web, is certainly a large element of its success.
But of course, this whole present day attorney induced phobia over trademark protection is based on the ease with which a new company might emulate an older well-established company. But this does not apply to google.com.
The advantages that google's operation has over its competition at the moment is far more than it's name. In fact, the name recognition that it enjoys is based completely on the superior performance of what they DO, not who they are.
Tomorrow google.com could announce that they are changing their name to shitbucket.com. And within a month or two of offering their services from that new domain name, the term "google" will have lost it's meaning, and the verb "shitbucketing" will have entered into daily usage.
Substance over symbol makes lawyers absolete.
Re:Redifference between uppercase and lowercase (Score:1, Interesting)
Is google free software? What explains the doe eyed hero worship on slashdot for google?
Google's got this all Backward (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Redifference between uppercase and lowercase (Score:5, Interesting)
Suppose I set up Supergoogle, a web search site. Google wants to go to court and get an injunction to stop me from using that name. To do that, they will need to submit an affidavit from an officer of the company that explains, among other things, how Google has tried to protect its trademark. A typical paragraph of that affidavit could be a short explanation of how Google once sent a letter to a person whose web site implied that Google wasn't a trademark. A copy of the letter would be attached to the affidavit as one of many such exhibits.
The primary purpose of sending the letter on this occasion was to prepare for that possibility.
Re:never work (Score:4, Interesting)
On a related note, Apple paid royalties to Coca Cola for using the word "Classic" to describe a product.. damn USPTO again I guess.
Re:To Google, To Xerox... (Score:2, Interesting)
Please consider the fate of Hormel and their product: SPAM
There ya go.
Do you Yahoo? (Score:2, Interesting)
Nothing wrong with "slashdotting" either. Though there are unpleasant aspects of being slashdotted.
Re:Search engines are specific (Score:5, Interesting)
yesterday. I think it's coming to mean much more
than just searching online. More like, searching
every possible location. A comprehensive search.
Re:never work (Score:4, Interesting)
The fact is, that the public has immense power to influence trademarks. If PEOPLE generically use Xerox to mean 'to copy documents,' 'photocopiers,' and/or 'copied documents,' then the trademark will die. This is known as genericide, since a generic word cannot be trademarked. (Which is why you can't trademark Apple with reference to the fruit; that's the generic name! Has nothing to do with the computer company.)
Asprin, heroin, cellophane... these all _used_ to be trademarks. Xerox and kleenex have been on the verge for ages. Sanka just barely managed to save their mark.
Personally, I think it's fun, and I often use marks as generic words (for example, being from the South, I call all soft drinks coke unless I'm trying to specifically discuss one in particular).
Thus, if people DO use google to mean to search for something online, this will destroy the Google trademark over time. I say, let's do it!
Note to Google (Score:2, Interesting)
--Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu
And here's the proof (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:From Google.com (Score:3, Interesting)
>universe. Not stars, not dust particles, not atoms.
I think you mean a googol-plex, which is a googol raised to a googol. That's more than the number of atoms in the universe.
Re:Redifference between uppercase and lowercase (Score:3, Interesting)
I doubt that. More likely the surname is derived from the geographical feature.
I can't be sure of course, but I think the original poster may have been making a reference to that bit about how Tolkien chose "Frodo" as a single letter transliteration of "Fordo", which was a name that meant "doom-bringer" or something like that (as in "Enri the Fordo" (sometimes "Enri the Fordoer" or "Enri duFordo"-- all apparently the same guy. He was that Saxon noble who went on a rampage after the battle of Hastings). I recall at that time there was some talk of the name "Ford" being a shortened version of "Fordoer" or "duFordo" or something like that (the root of all of them is the verb "to fordo" which meant to destroy something by tearing out its insides). Certainly that kind of subtle word play was right up Tolkien's alley-- making "Frodo" a sort of anti-fordo.
It's probably just as well that the Ford family name was changed before they got into assembly line production. Otherwise I suppose that Chevies and other auto makerrs would have been unable to make any four door models (since that would have been a clear mockery of the Fordoer Motor Company's name and disallowed by trademark law).
Does anyone use 'rede' (in the Ethelred the un~ sense) these days?
I had to re-read the AC's post, but I think that was his point. That is, if I have reded his words correctly. (I think I got that right... yep, that usage agrees with the 20 pound Webster).