Verbing Weirds Google

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!

Comments

Use as a verb is step towards generic

[cenonce]

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). 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:The English Language has nouns as well!

[Theaetetus]

The English language has a noun, google, as well. It means 10^100,

Sorry, no - the noun is googol.

"Google" comes from a pun on googol and a contraction of "Go ogle".

-T

Re:Trademarks and loss of trademarks

[renard]

*If* Google wants to keep their trademark, and there are good reasons for them to do so, then this is exactly what they need to do, whether you like it or not.

Apparently you didn't read the linked article (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

Re:Redifference between uppercase and lowercase

[alkali]

To elaborate a bit:

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:Search engines are specific

[aminorex]

My daughter said she was googling for her other sock,
yesterday. I think it's coming to mean much more
than just searching online. More like, searching
every possible location. A comprehensive search.